I wait nineteen days for a test result—unremarkable—to post to my account. I wait eight days for that first shoot of morning glory to emerge from the dirt. I wait twenty minutes for the river to give me a better image—sun glancing off ripples, or little eddies swirling in tangled branches near shore. I’ve driven a few miles to get here, after all. This waiting isn’t so bad when the light lingers each evening, then arrives a bit earlier the next day, when petals from the Callery pear tree drift through the parking lot like snow. Even if the abandoned factory has sprung back to life, semis arriving and grinding away in clouds of exhaust. Even if the red-winged blackbirds trill back and forth across the water, notes echoing near and far, near and far, and then with no warning, much farther away.

Bio: Kathleen McGookey