Anne Panning: MAGIC WINDOW • Cleaver Magazine

Anne Panning
MAGIC WINDOW (CHASING HOME)

What did you think when you cupped your hands against the glass and peered inside? Did you think the old wavy Victorian glass was a portal to the past? Did you see your mother in the kitchen, frying liver draped with onions? Was she listening to John Denver on her little boom box? Did she have a dish towel slung over her shoulder? Embroidered with kittens or vegetables? Was it soft with wear? Was the yellow-painted radiator leaking warmth? Was her heart a basket of needles? A tiny jar of yarn? If you sat at her table, might she fry you an egg? Pour you some red Kool-Aid in a juice glass? What might she tell you that you’d never heard before?

Try the other side of the house. The window back there, by the tiger lilies.

Was that your father there in his bedroom watching baseball, his ankles crossed on top of the log cabin quilt? Were the Twins winning? Could you see the score? Was his Food ‘n Fuel travel mug as stained and scratched up as ever? Full of old coffee he’d microwave throughout the day and night (and day and night)? Was he wearing his Wranglers or Levi’s? Dreaming of the lottery ticket with winning numbers? So he could quit his job at the cabinet factory and buy a little house on Lake Waconia? Did he still like his tiny sunfish filets floured and fried in butter? Was this before the rosacea would turn his face red with pain? Before Bud Light would slur his speech while he slurped hot dogs cold from the pack? Could he see you? Did he ever really see you?

Tap on the glass. Go ahead. Wave hello.

Anne Panning has published a memoir, Dragonfly Notes: On Distance and Loss, as well as a novel, Butter, and two short story collections: The Price of Eggs and Super America, which won The Flannery O’Connor Award and was a New York Times Editor’s Choice. Her short publications include Brevity (6x), Bellingham Review, Prairie Schooner, River Styx, New Letters, The Florida Review, Passages North, Black Warrior Review, The Greensboro Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Quarterly West, The Kenyon Review, Hippocampus, and River Teeth. She is currently working on a memoir about her late father. She teaches creative writing at SUNY-Brockport.