by Emily Tuszynska

The day out of focus. Egg
on the floor half-wiped,
the dryer’s buzz.
What am I looking for,

I keep thinking,
as if it’s a thing I’ve set down
and forgotten, something I might
find again and take up in my hand.

I was just—going back up
to take out the meat to thaw
for supper. Underfoot,
my daughter. Snick, snick,

the snips fall from her scissors.
A fistful, a smear of glue.
Sometimes my life
seems so far way it’s almost

invisible. A blue dot
on my phone’s screen
tracks my sons’ ride to the lake.
Sidewalks. Leaves crushed

beneath bike tires. I’m half here,
half there where they are,
restless light off the water
flashing among trees

in a code I can’t decipher.
Upstairs my daughter
keeps picking out the same
six notes on the piano. Stopping.

Repeating. Waiting
for the song to take hold.
Daily I press against the familiar
hours, searching for a gap,

an opening. When the path
meets the water’s edge, the wind
gusts off the water like a draft
through some hidden door.

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Emily Tuszynska lives with her family in Virginia, just outside Washington D.C. Her poetry has appeared in The Georgia Review, New Ohio Review, Poetry Northwest, Prairie Schooner, The Southern Review, and many other journals. Her first full-length collection will be published by Grayson Books in 2024.