by Colleen Alles
They listen from the next room as I dig through the kitchen
junk drawer: screws, pens, half a dozen cords that charge God
only knows what. A rubber band older than Methuselah
snares my thumb as my husband calls, Hon, you find one?
I’m fishing for a book of matches in this sea of safety pins,
AAA batteries. Why bother, part of me wonders. Let’s skip
the candle, the singing, cut the cake already. What’s the point
of a candle burning barely the length of one song? I tell them
I’m coming, even though I’m no closer to the light in this rubble
of everything we needed, everything we need now, everything
we may need someday. I set aside the unticking watch I bought
in Dublin, the expired driver’s license wherein I still look thin.
Here’s the fortune from that one stale cookie that seemed to know
about my most recent mistake before I did. 41. Halfway there,
I think. Me. Maybe more. Maybe less. God only knows. The kids
squeal at the table. I know my husband can’t keep their fingertips
from the frosting much longer. I know no one waiting for cake
is asking Why bother? I’m thankful, as I finally spy a Bic beneath
a book of postage stamps, that all these years, I’ve always been
loved enough to have lighted candles on my birthday—loved
in a way that someone’s always taken a light to the tip of a wick
without worrying too much over the lifespan of my flame.
Colleen Alles is a native Michigander and award-winning writer living in Grand Rapids. The author of two novels and a collection of poetry, she is also a contributing editor of short fiction for Barren Magazine and obsessed with her hound, Charlie, who is a very good boy. You can find her online at www.colleenalles.com.