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the light at the end of the tunnel
—
they tell me
when i was born,
i was so quiet, my eyes
open & staring into faces.
& it was different back then,
my mother giving birth
alone with the doctors.
my father’d dropped her
at the hospital & gone off hunting.
there were no in-laws
no balloons, no printed banners.
i was the only child born on that day
in that rural hospital,
the leaves curling yellow outside.
& so
when someone talks about the light
at the end of the tunnel,
i know it’s summer afternoons
with their sweet red popsicles
& the fine fire of fall leaping
from tree to tree.
it’s street lights
& sunsets. computer monitors,
& reading lamps & fireworks.
but to the womb where i started,
i have gone out of it & died.
maybe what’s beyond here
is another larger space
filled with brighter light.
maybe we’re burrowing our way up
from boundary to boundary.
this way
to the next great ray of light.
maybe mother earth
will look down at me and coo.
© LeeAnn Heringer