'Some Other Right Thing' by Marcy Dilworth

You tell yourself no one will ever know, that you paused-not-stopped your powerwalk when you heard the peal of “Mommy” from the Clark’s cluttered garage, glimpsed that little hand reaching out the SUV window, that you promised yourself you’d circle back in fifteen minutes, that you’d knock on the door or call the cops or do some other right thing if the toddler continued its plea, that you got lost in your #1 playlist and your exercise high and by the time you rolled back around it was thirty minutes, forty, that all was quiet in the garage, no pudgy hand grasping the window ledge, that you congratulated yourself for your neighborly concern while you hustled home to join an urgent call and take a quick shower and eat a Greek salad, extra onion, hold the feta, that you barely registered the distant-insistent sirens that sunny afternoon, that your taut core shook when you heard the news, that you deleted your #1 playlist and every pulsing song on it, that your dreams will swim forever with tiny pale fingers, beckoning, closing in, pointing at you.