Rising at 5:47 AM

I’m standing, chill air drawing my silhouette, in the unlit sea-green
bathroom — the halting walk from bed to bathroom sink has unfurled my
wakefulness — and I slowly open the corner of my reflection on the medicine cabinet door. Daily doses are located by position and size of their child-proof containers. Their shapes and colors vary like microscope images of sand, chunks of chemical rainbow, these morning pills now held tight in the hollow of my palm: circles, rectangles, and triangles, milligrams to grams; as I juggle both water cup and tap handle, hoping not to dislodge a single caplet. The cup fills, like the shade lifting on the morning sky, and I bring my health-bearing hand up, tossing those small physiological correctors into my mouth. I sip and swallow, then return to now cool sheets — the new day yet unmade.
Gary D. Grossman
MacQueen’s Quinterly #24