Laura Kasischke __________ View from glass door I have stood here before. Just this morning I reached into the dark of the dishwasher and stabbed my hand with a kitchen knife. Bright splash of blood on the kitchen floor. Astonishing red. (All that brightness inside me?) My son, the Boy Scout, ran to get the First Aid kit—while, beyond the glass door, the orchard. Beyond the orchard, the garden bed, and beyond the garden, all the simple people I remember simply standing in their lines. Or sitting in their chairs waiting for the film to start or for the plane to land or for the physician to call them in. How easy it would have been instead to stand up shouting about cold, dumb death. But there they waited as if the credits might begin to roll again. As if the bandages, the bolts, the scrolls. The paper towels, the toilet paper. And as the family stood around considering my hand, I could clearly hear the great silenced choirs of them singing soothing songs: Who fended for and fed me. Who lay beside me in the dark and stroked my head. Who called me their sweetheart, their miracle child. Who taught me to love by loving me. Who, by dying, taught me to die. Covered in earth. Covered in earth. On the other side of this glass door. Calm, memorized faces to the sky.