Team of Light
Ellen Henning
A circular table takes center stage in a casual,
70’s style, celestial dining room off the kitchen,
autumn in the window and tiny roses in the wallpaper pattern.
Small stacks of crossword puzzles and books wait for when
the team turns weary, watching me cry in my car and eat Clif bars.
Divine Angel Energy abounds in every inch of empty space.
Jane Kenyon reads a pink paperback of Little Women while
she pets my cat, Peaches, from girlhood. Charlotte spins her silk,
almost invisible above Dad’s Anthony. His young death, a drunk accident.
He shuffles cards– his young face back on his head, eyes a firework sparkle.
My father walks easy, with hair and work boots, in a small triangle—
seat to stove to turntable, Greta Van Fleet’s From The Fires spinning.
Here, he hums. Smiles. Chemo ruins nothing. Food always tastes like food.
Before dinner each night, Dad writes I’m sorry on one of his yellow legal pads
next to my name, his unmistakable lettering—in black pen, all caps.
The team smokes cigarettes that can’t kill you while deliberating
which signs to send— a myriad of hawks, German Shepherds, geraniums.
Their messages can convince me God is real on the right kind of day.
On others, down here, I stubbornly believe I will only heal
by holding his apology in small, slight hands that look like his.
Ellen Henning
Ellen is a poet, speech-language pathologist, mother, and Midwestern artist. Her poems have appeared in Ars Sententia, Pearl Press, and were showcased with her multimedia collage work at Side Street Gallery in Elgin, Illinois. She cares deeply about friendship and community, reading and writing with local organizations—The Sanctuary Poets and Atrocious Poets. Her summer was magnificently spent admiring Mother Nature, bike riding with Sabrina Carpenter, reading mostly romance, writing à la Lynda Barry, and swimming in other people's pools with her six-year-old son.