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
reflection