✨ The Shape of Someday

the language of careful words...

The Shape of Someday

On the family room floor,
my daughter and I lay flat
in front of a box fan,
and stave off the first heat
blast of summer vacation.
Lately we speak the language
of careful words (mine)
and death stares (hers)
and slammed doors (ours),
but a movie and morning
inertia nudge us together
with little energy for more.
I have to thank Remy, that
gourmet-cooking, looking-
for-his-place-in-the-world
rat from Ratatouille—
misunderstood by his family,
separated from the colony,
he emerges from a terror-tour
of the sewers onto Parisian
streets. As he marvels at
the animated Eiffel Tower,
my rising eighth-grader lets
her wish loose: someday, I
want to go to Paris. I made
the same wish in eighth
grade; to her, too quickly,
I reply: someday, we will.
For the rest of that week,
I can’t swallow the shape
of someday on my tongue.

—Michelle Ortega

From the forthcoming When You Ask Me, “Why Paris?”, Finishing Line Press, © Copyright 2025. Used with permission of the poet. Photo by Patrick Langwallner, Creative Commons, via Unsplash.