What If, Tomorrow

the warm summer morning turns cold

and we drive to the discount theatre 

to kill the time

kids are gone

house is quiet 

and clean

sit in the dark 

our beating hearts beneath the soundtrack din

what if our lives

lives we no longer recognize but live them anyway

like going back to our childhood homes

and finding them unchanged

untouched except for one small detail

only we would know

pantry shelves still stocked 

with all the crap you used to crave

your mother’s white slippers by the bedroom door

worn wooden step to the basement still announcing

our descent

what if tomorrow the night

a bright ball of flame

all the hours upended and inverted

no calendar no clock

we keep starting from the start

starting now

starting 

now

we are young but we are wise

we are wounded but kind

alone but each of us reaching

for the next

what if tomorrow unknowing

is freedom

and certainty the prison 

that only the dead can claim

starting now

how emerging 

from movie theatre darkness

we take time 

starting now

for our vision to clear

Mary-Kim Arnold is a writer, artist, and teacher. She is the author of The Fish & The Dove (Noemi Press) and Litany for the Long Moment (Essay Press). Other writings have appeared in Hyperallergic, Conjunctions, The Denver Quarterly, The Georgia Review, and elsewhere.