Sensing the Possible
My friend and I scurry to the 7-Eleven display heaped with rubber dogs. I knead opaque packaging until I feel the figures’ contours. The square edges of the pillow a dog sits on, the outline of a whistle around a Labrador’s neck. I discern the prone silhouette of a dog named Dreamer – a toy Lily has, and one I covet to complete my set. I repeat the process.
“Here’s Sugar,” I say, placing the poodle into her palm.
“Thanks for finding her.” Lily’s voice blossoms into a smile.
Tired from a day at school, filled with chatter and typing, fingers sore from countless pages of braille, I strain my ears for Mom’s keys. I can pick out their tinkle anywhere.
“My mom’s here to pick me up,” I say to the after school program manager.
“No, I don’t see her.”
A second later the velvet blanket of Mom’s voice envelops me.
*
Thunder rolls; fleeting fear ricochets inside my rib cage. Lights click off. In the spaces between the drumbeats, silence glazes our home.
“I can’t see where I’m going,” my sister grumbles.
As our hands connect I understand.
There is always more than one way to know when the sun beams, to find the answer to a question, to get to a destination. Throughout my life, when I walk over the sharp rocks of “you can’t” inside myself or in the world, I listen to these moments, these cascading streams smoothing stone, reminding me I, we, can.
Megan Dausch is a writer and accessibility specialist from New York. She makes her home with her husband and guide dog. Her work has appeared in Breath And Shadow, The Dead Pets Poetry Anthology and Claw & Blossom.