Lightening

When it was thought that the light
would come down fancifully like a thought
struck or a clock struck one,
the woman laid down her coffee cup—
thought of some laundry on a pole
and the light bearing down
as if it were taking a shit. It was dirty—
not like the light in the stories with the women
and their honey-gold hair, but like seeds
being strewn across a broad and gray landscape
or berries being crushed on a floor.
 
 
 

Katy Lederer is the author of the poetry collections Winter Sex (Verse/Wave) and The Heaven-Sent Leaf (BOA Editions), as well as the memoir Poker Face: A Girlhood Among Gamblers. This poem is from a series called "Health."