Lesson for the New Year

 

Once I  locked myself

in a broken-down blue refrigerator we had stored in the cellar:

clasp hinges rust-crusted,

wobbly ineffectual handle, chrome on blue enamel.

I crowded myself

between tiny tin icebox and tiny crisper

after taking out both tiny shelves

and stacking them neatly against the fridge’s empty back,

and I slammed the door shut on me

by shoving it open hard

so that it bounced back, sealed,

when it hit its hinge-limit.

Then it had nothing in it but me and dead air

and I played by myself in the dark with its echoes

till my backside started to ache

and, trying to move,

I realized there was no getting out.

Then I quit singing and pretending to hide.

When I shoved on the door in my panic

one of the hinges broke;

though the latch was still caught

one corner of the door hung apart

and I put my mouth to the hole

and yelled for my mother till I was hoarse.

So I didn’t suffocate after all.

How foolish we are—

we, playing in the dark—

to think there are two second chances.

By Julie Juchau, Ensign, Jan. 1975, inside front cover