Motion

Motion

By Jessica Goodfellow

Because my husband is going slowly

blind, the lights in our house have motion

sensors. As I walk through the rooms

I am the star of the show, lit one-by-one by

spotlights as I go. Desiring the dark,

I must sit motionless. One itch, one twitch,

and up come the houselights, rendering

me suddenly—again—audience of me.                        

Tonight we are sitting in the dark

beside the Christmas tree. Its strands

of blinking lights remind my husband

of his childhood, when he could see.

I find it funny they don’t remind him of

the blinking lights that ring the edges of

his eye field, proof of his rods and cones

one-by-one dying. Not ha-ha funny, the other kind.

There are things ha-ha funny about going

blind though. Like that time he walked

wearing a three-piece wool suit into the deep

end of a swimming pool in a hotel in Italy.

I wasn’t there—he told me later.

I was at home, turning lights on and off

through only my anxious pacing.

Sitting by the Christmas tree, I squeeze

my husband’s hand—squeeze and release,

squeeze and release—my hand blinking

in his. It’s such a tiny motion the sensors

don’t detect it. Someday my husband will

sit in the dark and wave his arms wildly

and still be in the dark. One-by-one every-

thing happens, every disappearance appears.

(This poem was originally published in B O D Y Literature)

Bio: Jessica Goodfellow’s poetry books are Whiteout (University of
Alaska Press, 2017), Mendeleev’s Mandala, and The Insomniac’s
Weather Report. A former writer-in-residence at Denali National Park
and Preserve, she’s had poems in The Southern Review, Ploughshares,
Scientific American, Verse Daily, Motionpoems, and Best American
Poetry. Jessica lives and works in Japan.

Website: www.jessicagoodfellow.com 

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