Sparking the Fire

I'm my least jaded in the morning while sheets are still warm from sleep, hair mussed with dreams, and skin shiny having run from ghosts. I wake with cat mewing at the door, white paw beneath threshold, searching for a magic latch to unhook, that lets him curl into the crook of my knees. The TV is on low, some far away sounds of two dimensional, neon-colored faces, my child speaking softly and innocently to imaginary people on the couch, then, for a moment, all is silent save the scraping of the plow's blade pushing night snow into jagged heaps. Door clicks open and my progeny eases in to deliver rapid-fire cartoon fantasies about the time she was a cat trainer living in the circus, and didn't I remember that? Or, are you just too old to imagine it? Aleathia Drehmer 2009 Published by Shoots & Vines, Print Anthology "I Can't Be Your Virgin and Your Mother"