The sort of innocence of an early spring day at 59 degrees with no telephones— no idea of anything else. The fluctuation of senses, the cough, the yell, the gust of too cold air blowing hair in your lips, the possibility of smells, of pine tree smells, the hobble of an old man with a telescope on an iron bridge, the peeling white skin of a sycamore, the yellowing of white pages in the afternoon. The idea of endings, the spider leg hairs on your knuckles, the voices around, the cloudlessness or blueness or orangeness of the sky, the stump-your-toe frustration, your toes on dewy grass or folding into cool sand or thick moist mud, the struggle to fit your second arm into a coat, the feeling of looking silly in public alone. The idea of dying, the possibility you could get wet and feel your clothes and skin differently and see the street lights differently because they shine on the wetness in a way you’d never see if it were dry, the green stink bug working its way up your sweater sleeve
the light space hanging
between a thumb and insect–
just before the crunch.
Anna Beth Lane is a senior creative writing major and anthropology minor. She enjoys writing poems and nonfiction essays.