A poem

The writer's challenge for this week was to write about your first memory. I must have been 2 1/2 or 3. We were living in N. Dakota. This is what I came up with.

Not The Last

The room is huge,

like the rooms in a castle.

The ceilings hover

near the sky.

It’s dark.

There is a dim light

from somewhere,

but I can’t see where it is.

And there are flashes.

Bright, blinding, filling the room.

Then a rumble that moves through the room,

shaking everything as it runs.

I curl up

the tightest, smallest ball I can become,

hiding behind a wall and

under a cascade of fabric.

My mother’s legs and couch pillows.

“Daddy?”

Light blinds again and then darkness.

Utter and complete.

No more memory.

But not the last.