“It’s a race!” my nine-year old daughter exclaimed,
as I showed her the translucency
in the different sizes of French fries
we were cooking up. I smiled, wryly.
A race. That word. Race.
So many meanings, synonyms, similarities;
but, in the end, it comes out to the same thing.

“Watch,” I told my young-wise daughter,
jerking the pan, to jump the French fries back,
like a chef, only, it didn’t work, two flipped out
on the first jerk. Ha, the aging are funny,
knowing too much; including, innately, laws of physics.
I dropped a full Tupperware tumbler
of chocolate milk, once, to the kitchen floor.
It sprayed the ceiling, and the furthest reaches
beyond my reach, with splatters of spilled milk.
The race almost ended there.

Translucency. What a difficult word to rhyme,
in middle age. Lunacy? Lunatic? Lunar moods?
I’m a loon…do you see? Over half translucent,
and opaquing, feeling crystallized. Let me chrysallize,
awake and aware... Is it too late? The race…

Translucency fades, obliques, evaporates.

‘It’s a race’ echoes through my head
as I look at the overcooked French fries,
brown, limp, and weeping salt.

My daughter said they were dead.

And, I agreed.

Erin Elizabeth Kelly-Moen
© Copyright 4/9/04