Deborah L. Staunton

Poised at the Precipice
For Rina

      Pen to paper for the first time since you left. The light is dim, a pinprick in the distance. I yearn to touch it and yet I can’t. Tentative, flickering in the shadows, a candle extinguished with the slightest breath. I hold it, so as not to snuff you out.

      I am poised on the precipice of a void, a chasm, a darkness that looms up to engulf me. I turn my back to it, welcome neither the light nor the darkness but remain between the two, unmoving, bolted to the ground we once shared. Unable to shift an inch in either direction, I hold my breath for both of us.  As a child grips a balloon, helium-filled and reaching skyward, I am tethered to you, no breeze to lift me up and carry me away.