The Refrigerator Resolves

Both hands flat on the mattress.

The refrigerator cycled on

and for three seconds I was nine years old—

not remembering being nine,

just being it again,

the particular attention

of a house that's yours alone

and maybe isn't.

Then the hum resolved.

Just the hum.

I lay there anyway,

the strip of light under the door

doing what it was doing,

which was being light, not news.

The fear left at some point.

I couldn't say when.

That's the thing about fear—

it doesn't announce its exit,

just stops being

the loudest thing in the room.

By three the refrigerator cycled off.

I was still awake.

I left the hallway light on all night

for no reason I could name

except that I had turned it on

and no one had come home to ask.