In a Certain Light  |  Karina Borowicz

The counter is that indeterminate shade of gum chewed too long. A vibrating pattern of tiny flecks floats over it, best viewed with a side-long glance. She's wiping it down in vigorous circles with a sour cloth. Swirls of water droplets replace the crumbs and ketchup thumbprint. The special for one twenty-five, pie and a coffee. Punctuated by the little bell of a spoon stirring in cream, a fork snapped down flat. Soon the ceiling lamps burn milky pink, as if they have a dusk of their own coming on. Their own longings toward cosmology.

The slightest move now could give years, a lifetime, away.      

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