My Husband Explains Light Years to our Ten-Year-Old Daughter<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He pours the last of the blueberries on breakfast yogurt,
\na few more in her bowl than in his, and considers her question.<\/p>\n
A unit of measure; not time, he says, but distance. He mentions
\nstars. (Like those in her eyes when she\u2019s with him; those in my eyes
\nand his, in some distant past, it seems, though the light\u2019s still steady.)<\/p>\n
He says it\u2019s the way light travels, which is to say: velocity (something
\nwe know about; having lived this decade, tracked light\u2019s orbit
\nback to the start, watched each turn alter the image).<\/p>\n
And what will remain?<\/p>\n
For me, the bits of kitchen conversation that floated me awake. For him,
\nthose lopsided blueberry portions, perhaps. For her? Who knows<\/p>\n
what will burn away, what will remain, light years, of course, from now.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“My Husband Explains Light Years to our Ten-Year-Old Daughter\u00a0” first appeared in Poet Lore..<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Christine Johnson-Duell’s<\/a> work has appeared in CALYX<\/em>, Poet Lore<\/em>,<\/a> Alimentum<\/em><\/a>, Cranky<\/em>\u00a0(poems) and The Boston Globe<\/em>, The Seattle Times<\/em>, Drash<\/em>, and Parent Map <\/em>(prose). She was awarded a Hedgebrook residency in 2007, was a semi-finalist for the “Discovery”\/The Nation award in 1996, and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Washington. Johnson-Duell lives in Seattle with her husband and daughter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My Husband Explains Light Years to our Ten-Year-Old Daughter He pours the last of the blueberries on breakfast yogurt, a few more in her bowl than in his, and considers her question. A unit of measure; not time, he … Continue reading