Eclipse

Still mothering by text message, 
I warned you not to look at the sky 
while I waded through crescents of light 
as if the sun had clipped its fingernails. 
Far from the path of totality, 
I longed for more than this slight twist 
of a dimmer switch, wished for 
a moment of complete darkness to commemorate 
your departure, the sun playing 
the sort of peekaboo game 
that made your baby self laugh.  

I wished to report, like others elsewhere, 
a dramatic drop in temperature, 
the chirp of crickets, the pop of streetlights, 
even newly hatched bats 
rising from our attic, mistaking 
the sudden dark for dusk. 
I wanted fanfare, speeches 
and bands, or at least commotion 
like when last week’s lost bat, 
my fear come to life, 
took a wrong turn and swooped, 
wide-winged, through the living room, 
a floater in the corner of my vision 
before it blotted out the light, 
one instant of totality before I sprang,  
screaming, and we circled each other dizzily.  

Lured downstairs, you screamed, 
we tripped each other in our mad scramble, 
you claimed you broke your toe, 
the bat thumped against the wall, 
folded like the patio table umbrella, 
and we tore pages from catalogues, 
tossing poorly aimed paper wads 
at that tight little package 
hanging above the fireplace. 
We retreated to the porch, coaxing, 
follow the light, come into the light, 
as if enticing a spirit to the other side 
while the dog escaped 
through the propped-open door 
and ran loose up and down the street,  

a chaos so unlike this calm, 
this quiet, 
this weird, nostalgic light, 
the world in sepia, 
this refusal of the sun 
to disappear entirely, 
this waning eclipse that upchucks 
its light-filled bananas.  

I have become parenthetical 
as I text you my warnings, 
still in totality your mom, 
the person I used to be shimmering 
like a bright corona around my edges 
as I stumble through hooked shadows 
and bats sleep on in my walls.

NANCY McCABE

Nancy McCabe is the author of five books, including the novel Following Disasters and the memoir From Little Houses to Little Women: Revisiting a Literary Childhood. Her work has received a Pushcart and made notable lists seven times in Best American anthologies.