When she reads, the pages between
her fingers seem to dissolve on skin
and she pretends she’s the woman in
the story, one of those whodunits—
her bedroom one flight above
the evening’s chaos —

outside shadows grow behind
trees, her children quarrel in a field
of overgrown grass as they search
the dimness for a lost toy; she hears
her husband demanding dinner—

a skein of geese fly overhead,
squawking through open space,
carping louder than her husband’s needs,
more compelling than her children’s
griping cries.

She continues to the following
chapter, deaf to the sounds around her.
Her husband steps into the kitchen, picks up
a paring knife, the children’s hullabaloo is
momentarily interrupted when a book
tumbles from the upstairs window.

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