Nancy Scott

FIRST THINGS

Listen to Audio Version read by Jill Khoury.

I wake to the dream's edge:
Esther drove through McDonald's
for cheeseburgers and coffee but we couldn't
carry our hot cups past our parking lot
because we forgot to get a tray.
Esther is 93 and legally blind.
She gave up driving in 1975
but she loves McDonald's coffee and most dreams mix something real
with something we don't have.

The coffeeless August morning is perfect
for reading on my balcony.
The two-year old next door knows this;
calls "chair, book" across the gate.
I dust off the mesh rocker's night—
sounds of crickets, arguments, sex, sneaking.
Robins are gone. Sun angles more toward my face.
I bring out the big Braille book of advice
for poets who don't usually remember dreams.
The almanac that forecasts next winter
is at the printer's.

Nancy Scott's over 650 essays and poems have appeared in magazines, literary journals, anthologies and newspapers, and as audio commentaries. She has published three chapbooks, and won First Prize in the 2009 International Onkyo Braille Essay Contest. Recent work appears in Breath and Shadow, Contemporary Haibun Online, and Stone Voices.