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Twinkle
There are just some things that will never be known. Like why there are stars in the sky.
As Priscilla wraps up this un-relationship, this relationship that she wanted, or thought she wanted,
and will always want on some subconscious, unrequited level, but that didn't ever happen, except on
maybe some subconscious, platonic, psychic, could-have-been-but-won't-ever-be sort of level, well,
she realizes that sometimes at the end of the life of a star, when they explode, or implode,
or fizzle, or blow out, or whatever it is that they do out there in space, well, there are
some things that just can't be known. And one just has to accept it. One can't go around
perturbed the rest of one's life over not knowing the answer to some cosmic riddle, so why
go around perturbed the rest of one's life over not knowing whether or not one could have
bagged the guy if conditions were right. Just lump it in with a cosmic riddle and accept it.
Astronomers and erudite people like that can tell us why the stars appear to twinkle. It probably has
to do with the speed of light or atmosphere and not with the flickering of distant flame. Priscilla's
knowledge of twinkling doesn't go much further than the nursery rhyme; however, she has been lucky enough
to experience a twinkle of the mind, a voracious fiery consuming of the night in sheets and sparks, that
fed itself on wish-fuel and heart oxygen.
Well. Now that's over.
If one pokes a stick down to the bottom of a soul one will find stars that twinkle and burn and never quite blow out.
Phoebe Wilcox is a lifelong resident of Eastern Pennsylvania . The first chapter of her novel,
Angels Carry the Sun, has been published in Wild River Review, and an excerpt from a second novel
in progress, The Use of Flower Symbolism in Feminist Art and Literature, has been published in Wild
Violet. Her story, "Carp with Water in Their Ears", published in River Poets Journal has been
nominated for this year's Pushcart Prize. Recent poetry may be found in Blue Collar Review and
Word Riot, and is forthcoming in Fiction at Work, VISIONS,The Battered Suitcase,
The Northville Review, Waterways, Counterexample Poetics, Glossolalia, Sixers
Review and in a chapbook of the River Poets. She has also been the recipient of a James Michener Scholarship award.
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