What to Do with a Good One

I’m going to accept your neighborly wishes for a “good one,” a great evening, nice day. I’ll prepare a nice brain with good thoughts; I’ll see my family of origin still alive. I’ll assemble my brother, batteries not included, as he seems to inhabit my son, Jesse, at times. Jesse likes to take risks as Anthony did. Jesse daredevils waves (if he had a surfing accident, Anthony would be propelled away again. But on this day I’ll erase that thought).

I’ll think of Anthony scaling rocks and mountains, coming down again. But I’ll pull him out of crisis zones where he photographed famine-carved children, families burned from huts and villages. New hot spots waited for my brother’s images and articles, but he didn’t get there.

After years of absence I’ll bring him to this day. He’ll break into his childhood giggle. He and Jesse will recognize each other, their full-out smiles mirrored, repeated. Our parents will thrill to all of us together, hugging like clasped hands.

“Have!” you invite me, neighbors and friends, when we part. The fulfilled day gets tucked into my life…nothing spectacular, just pleasant times. Perhaps safe as well.









Terese Robison is a recovering bucolic, having recently moved from CT woods to Brooklyn. She has also lived, in equal parts of her life, in Mexico and CA. An editor, interpreter, and mentor for youth on probation, she currently tutors as a college writing consultant. Her work has been published in Hiram Poetry Review, West Texas Literary Review, Tahoma Literary Review, Monkeybicycle, and elsewhere. A collection of her stories was developed in postgraduate study with Janet Burroway at FSU, as well as at UCLA and SCSU.