Page One

AN EXTRA DAY

By Sharon Metzler Dow
Wednesday December 30, 2009 - 09:18:00 AM

They drove South to Carmel’s white sand beach. 

She said her visiting mother had an extra day. 

 

Doesn’t life fit snug as skin—seamless? 

How would you attach an extra day? 

 

We circle the Galaxy on cruise control  

500,000 miles per hour. 

No safety belts. No stop signs. No red lights. 

All green and go. 

And going, we meet ourselves returning.  

Is this our extra day? 

 

Or is it the magenta plum that drops every February twenty-ninth? 

 

I do know my mother’s surgeon stitched a few extra sunrises to her. 

He said, “She has a few more days.” 

Mother, a Taurus, took the bull by the horns, 

and grasped another 108 days 

like the 108 garnet beads of her Catholic mother’s rosary 

like the 108 seeds of my Buddhist akshamala 

with its final bead stained red. 

 

When life’s membrane finally tore  

and mother left her badminton, Beethoven, 

mile-long swims and Matisse, 

did time bleed a little? 

 

It’s Palm Sunday and the breakfast eggs are nearly done. 

The white sand in the minute-timer flows fast — 

a billion shooting stars 

through a thin crystal throat. 

We turn it over 

for a little more time.