always a catch

“i haven’t slept in two years,” says my long-lost friend,
as her beatific toddler bounces in the background of our
video chat. “everything is better and everything’s worse,
like technicolor.” later that night, i tell my wife i’m sad,
“when will we be able to see everyone we love again?”
she nods, “we don't know. all we have is this moment.”
deftly, she pulls me back from the lure of catastrophe,
like a kindhearted fisherwoman in heavily-trawled seas.
but i am keen and slippery and i think of our languid
mornings, the quiet ebb and flow of our bodies tangled
in half sleep, how they will become temporarily buried
when we have a child of our own. i imagine a shipwreck,
in technicolor. but before i can dispatch another s.o.s.,
i remember my friend describing sleepless nights with
her son, “it’s like being up all night praying,” she said;
so i shut up and take my wife’s waiting hands in mine.

---

Tova Feldmanstern’s writing has appeared in print and online journals including Hawaii Pacific Review, Pithead Chapel, Thirty West, Healing Muse, Peregrine and Panoply.