Mom kinda overdid it.

As the eclipse approached

she made it all too clear:

if I dared go outside and look up,

blindness would follow.

I spent that darkening,

cowering under

the dining room table,

a terrified four year old,

waiting for the nemesis to pass.

Oddly, my elderly mother

is now nearly blind –

And I remain curious as to the secrets

hidden just off center, if

we dare glance at the Sun.

You?