On the Seventh Day of Christmas

Abstract

On the Seventh Day of Christmas Marsha Mathews (bio) Right now he is with her, doing the things that once made me laugh & shiver & feel as if I were part of what is real: the blanket, the floor, the street, the carols. I go out, try to shop, but the crowds squeeze me, jeer. Home, I hope unfamiliar walls will hold me upright. I work to exhaustion, clean windows, floors, string lights in the windows. The children sense something, cling & cry & fight for my lap. As I dress them for bed, I realize something is gone from my touch. Depleted of gentleness, I’m no longer the blanket, but the tear in it; nor the floor, but the creak in it; nor the street, but the dried tar beneath a road leading nowhere. [End Page 45] Marsha Mathews Marsha Mathews teaches creative writing, composition, and literature at Dalton State College in Georgia and serves as advisor to the college literary magazine, Tributaries. She came to Appalachia in 1996 to direct the Wesley Foundation in Wise, Virginia, and pastor two churches in Coeburn. Copyright © 2009 Berea College