A charcoal shadow accompanies my husband down the stairs.
He is to steady the ladder so I can change the bulb that’s set
in the tricky ceiling fixture, though I don’t need him there.
His iambic tread upon the steps is diffident and yet
if I’d climbed up alone, he’d say, “Don’t start without me.”
I wait. “I’ll put it in,” he says.
“Your leg,” I say.
“I’ll put it in.”
He holds on as I fiddle with the socket fitfully;
then the bulb’s light throws his dark twin on the wall. As I step
down I see his shadow merge with mine;
they share a common fate. We hold the ladder by its rungs
and put it behind the unopened whisky and wine
we keep behind the bar. Like a currentless light that always hung
between us, the unsaid stays unsaid, and in our dark,
our shadows almost touch, then touch, and are lit without a spark.
MARC TRETIN is a retired attorney who has been published in the New York Quarterly, Painted Bride, and The Massachusetts Review. He lives with one wife, two children, three cats, one dog, and one bunny. They get along in ways that are better than to be expected but mostly to the advantage of the bunny.
