The Touch of the Notch

    by Theresa Senato Edwards

She’d done absurd things as a child:

the counting of steps up stairways,

the repeating grip of the doorknob in her palm,

always the going back to the knob,

going back to the corner of the door,

it had a notch in one of its grooves,

a smooth wooden pool of calm.

She’d rub a circle to the right,

outline the groove,

pray for resolve.

~

When she and her three year old

moved into their first apartment,

she decorated.

Inside the perfectly smooth door,

she gave her son a room

and looked for a hollow

space she could call home.

Ran her fingers down the wood

of every door,

closed eyes searching for indentation:

that invisible worry dump

to help with the nights

of her son’s temper tantrums,

the struggle to sleep by herself

before sleep became breaths of insomnia.

No notch in any door.

But she found a green dent

in beige primer on the hallway step.

In odd stillness, her fingers traced

the small spot

smooth like family,

quiet like a gift of understanding.

© 2010 Theresa Senato Edwards

Theresa Senato Edwards' poetry has been featured online at Atticus Books, published in Blue Earth Review's spring 2010 print issue and online at Pirene’s Fountain.  Other poems appear in Boxcar Poetry Review's second print anthology (2010); CircleShow (Vol. 1, 2008) print anthology; and online at Stirring, Press 1, decomP, Clean Sheets, Chronogram, and elsewhere.  She is founder/editor/publisher of Holly Rose Review.