August 2022
Laura Ann Reed
lagreed@frontier.com
lagreed@frontier.com
Bio Note: I sporadically write, in different ways, about my survivor’s guilt for being the only one of seven offspring that survived. It’s one of those things that I never spoke about with my parents. And it’s only now, when neither of them are still alive, that I recognize that conversation would have gone a long way toward easing some of the tensions between us.
The Calculation
Last night, in The Tower’s
dining room, he says,
a man who lives on our floor
had his six children
sitting around him at the table
next to ours.
She thinks of her six brothers
and sisters—the four
who never made it out of darkness,
and the two who lived a day
before they turned away from light.
I was so jealous,
watching them, he says.
She thinks of her mother—
how she waited each year
for the one who survived
to gift her with seven
birthday bouquets.
Sweetheart, are you there?
he says.
She tries to think of a way
to explain the calculation:
her love for him
multiplied by his for her
divided by his blindness
to her pain = silence.
©2022 Laura Ann Reed
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