Rebecca Patrascu

Slanted Aubade

I make my way through life like someone
trying to walk across a dimly lit room full of sleeping
bodies on the floor. I don’t know why they’re there.

Maybe they’ve celebrated extravagantly,
or have nowhere to go, or just came off a twelve-hour shift
of neurosurgery or jackhammering. Exhausted,

they sprawl in a jigsaw of exhalations and dreams.
And I need to move past them to the door
that leads outside, very carefully, with respect.

I have to be so cautious; I can hardly get anywhere.
I nearly trip. I must use my arms, stretched out
to the side. I am a tightrope walker at a circus

where the audience has been overcharged,
the tent is too hot, the children sticky and whining,
the elephants obstinate in their refusal to perform.

And the sky is lightening, so the sleepers are stirring,
gradually becoming moving targets to avoid.
All I want is to walk from one side of the room to another,

to the door that leads outside. Because I can hear the birds
begin to tell one another other what the trees will do
once the darkness seeps its way back into the earth.

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Rebecca Patrascu’s work has appeared in publications including The Racket, Pidgeonholes, Bracken Magazine, Prairie Schooner, Colorado Review and Valparaiso Review. She has an MFA from Pacific University and is the author of the chapbook Before Noon (Finishing Line Press). She lives in northern California, works at the public library and catches honeybee swarms in the Spring.