Layla, with the warm sun at her back, focused on the small white circle inside her cardboard box projector. A perfect, dark bite had been taken from its upper-right corner. If the moon had progressed further through the eclipse in this last second, last minute, hour, such progress remained unremarkable.
“Lemmee see, lemmee see,” Maia chanted, tugging at the underside of the box. “Mom, lemmee see.”
Layla shifted the box over the head of her daughter. She tipped it until, on the distant end, an incomplete sun wavered on the white paper they had taped there.
“See it?”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. Nothing’s changed.”
For what else could Layla say? She hadn’t found peace like that since college when, having given the Upanishads a cursory read at best, the universe spilled open like a saguaro’s white bloom and as quickly wilted. She recalled this much. But moments ago, she had been back in college. She had been on the front porch of her girlfriend’s house with Happold’s Mysticism opened spine-down on her lap. On the sidewalk with the box, with her daughter, she maintained the sensation of having returned somewhere just now, but the recall of who-what-where-when-why escaped her. The feel of the book in her hands, the book, the couch, the overcast winter sky that day—it had all fallen into the rift, and the rift had closed.
“I don’t see it,” Maia complained, her head blocking the pinhole-sized slant of sunlight that streamed through the projector. “You’re not holding it right.”
“Woops. Sorry.”
Layla maneuvered the box until the deformed white circle reappeared. Everything, she thought, was like this: enchanting, transient, out of reach the moment her hands held it. Wherever she had been just now—through and back through whatever hole had appeared—only an imprisoned, unnamable splendor remained.
Maia raised an eyebrow. “What’s the big deal again? When did this happen before?”
“Just watch,” Layla said, ignoring any further questioning, tugging Maia down to her side. So what if the sun was being imperceptibly slowly hollowed out by the moon? “Sit down,” she said. “You’ll see.”
“Lemmee see, lemmee see,” Maia chanted, tugging at the underside of the box. “Mom, lemmee see.”
Layla shifted the box over the head of her daughter. She tipped it until, on the distant end, an incomplete sun wavered on the white paper they had taped there.
“See it?”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. Nothing’s changed.”
For what else could Layla say? She hadn’t found peace like that since college when, having given the Upanishads a cursory read at best, the universe spilled open like a saguaro’s white bloom and as quickly wilted. She recalled this much. But moments ago, she had been back in college. She had been on the front porch of her girlfriend’s house with Happold’s Mysticism opened spine-down on her lap. On the sidewalk with the box, with her daughter, she maintained the sensation of having returned somewhere just now, but the recall of who-what-where-when-why escaped her. The feel of the book in her hands, the book, the couch, the overcast winter sky that day—it had all fallen into the rift, and the rift had closed.
“I don’t see it,” Maia complained, her head blocking the pinhole-sized slant of sunlight that streamed through the projector. “You’re not holding it right.”
“Woops. Sorry.”
Layla maneuvered the box until the deformed white circle reappeared. Everything, she thought, was like this: enchanting, transient, out of reach the moment her hands held it. Wherever she had been just now—through and back through whatever hole had appeared—only an imprisoned, unnamable splendor remained.
Maia raised an eyebrow. “What’s the big deal again? When did this happen before?”
“Just watch,” Layla said, ignoring any further questioning, tugging Maia down to her side. So what if the sun was being imperceptibly slowly hollowed out by the moon? “Sit down,” she said. “You’ll see.”
Damon McLaughlin is a poet and musician from Tucson, Arizona. His chapbook Olduvai Theory won the 2011 Toad Hall Press Chapbook Contest; Exchanging Lives (Backwaters Press, 2008) is his first full-length collection. He blogs at “Present Everywhere, Visible Nowhere.
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