Corey Mesler Glimmerless This morning I look in vain for one original word, a key that will turn in me something elemental, something I need turning.† Every utterance seems filled with self-consciousness. Not that that is necessarily un- necessary.† But that one word, an incarnation perhaps, evades me.† I try rhathymia, which my book here tells me means “light-heartedness.”† It is decidedly wrong.† I lift my head.† My son’s picture, my daughter’s, stare back at me.† I am without glimmer.† In the mirror I am only more mirror. I concoct a word that doesn’t exist in our language but still might have meaning or should have one: glimmerless.†I am glimmerless.† I write down the word next to my name.† ~ Charles Baxter |