nighttime

A few things I consider:

     the fortune, from a fortune cookie, and why it is taped to the refrigerator
     a secret written on a scrap of paper and hidden in a rock wall
     pennies, sunk and making copper bottoms of our fountain pools
     dandelions
     stars
     while stopping at rest stops or truck stops, how much money I have given to the
                  scales which provide your true weight accompanied with a fortune
     Euler
     crossed fingers
     the difference between plans and wishes
     the difference between wishes and dreams
     whether the difference is something worth considering
     curses
     escape velocity
     snowflakes
     the emotions of broken umbrellas, or how dead umbrellas affect us
     the ESA's Rosetta project
     stars again
     my little pine cone song, and therefore, little pine cones.

     
     
     

    







I ask Min to throw the wishes out the window. She is busy, and I interrupt her day. I see her smiling when she throws, so maybe my asking is not so much an intrusion; I can only hope. I do not ask her if she likes to throw wishes out the window.

They fall. I throw them over my daughter, also. She spreads her arms wide and stands smiling. I see she likes the feeling of these light things, hiding secrets from her, falling near her. She calls it magical. She asks me to throw them again and again and again.

Sunday, she was in the playhouse with me while I threw the wish objects on the shelves. She immediately ran to a pile of them and touched them all, trying to understand what they were hiding. She stomped on the ones on the ground. Surprised at her destruction, I asked why. She said, quite honestly and plainly, that there is something inside, and she needs to find out what.

I walk under the full moon. I see Min looking for the moon, too. The clouds want to hide it from us, but we have seen it already. The big house gathers us. I feel like a wish discarded, and then taken back, again and again and again.