(1)
Its summer, when I think, winter’s over.
I dreamed of a massive thaw and creatures
prehistoric, but small – they resembled
sea horses – came to life. Now I’m fumbling
my pills. That tremble. Electric dance, I’m
ready. Faith in a thimble. Blue Plymouth,
I’ll drive away. I’ll fly away. Can I?
Now eight months since I dreamed I’d rather die.
- With sea horses, it’s the male that carries
young in a pouch. Mine in the blue Plymouth.
I made arrangements for them with the parish
priest, but couldn’t face the kids to tell them,
seized an excuse to lose my temper.
I snapped at them for not saying, Father.
(2)
I snapped at them for not saying Father
to the priest and asked if they wanted him to think
they hadn’t been brought up to be proper
Catholics. Hard-voiced and I watched them shrink.
I started the car and gripped the steering wheel
hard, just drove, until I got my voice to
work again. Billy asked how long? went still.
Billy’s forehead pressed against the window
pane hard. He barely moved then, or later
on the day when I drove up to that house where
I left them, just left them. Cherie looked smaller.
Sandy held onto Kenny’s hand and waved.
The kids recede in the rear view mirror.
Careful, things are closer than they appear.
(3)
Careful. Things are closer than they appear
through the fog of electric shock, the blur,
an ache that’s been in my brain, a worry,
that Catholic bus driver’s family.
I saw them once when I dropped the kids off,
eight months. The priest vouched for them, good people.
Were they? Can I cope? Furniture out of
storage, now packed in the U-haul trailer
behind my blue Plymouth. The doctor says
I’m ready. The pills put everything at
a little distance – like someone else feels
the hard things. The long drive changes me back
and there’s something I’ve got to remember,
how in this family, I’m the mother.
(4)
How in this family, I’m the mother.
and the kids are out there on the back porch
as I walk across the living room floor,
there, out in bright sunlight, through the screen door.
They haven’t seen me yet, and I’m not back
until they see me. I’m not mother, “mama,” yet
until they see me. I take a moment then
push on the screen door, a slow squeak, a scrape.
their heads turn, the four of them rushing
to me. Now I sit on the porch step, hold
Kenny in my lap, the others telling
what wasn’t in their letters, seeming old.
Mrs. Follis told them I wouldn’t be strong.
I say, I’m a lot stronger than she thinks I am.
(5)
I’m a lot stronger than she thinks I am,
so I pack up the kids clothes (Easter clothes
missing) and toys (fewer than before) as
fast as I can, get back out on the road,
put miles, then mountains behind us, climbing
the Rockies. Kids count license plates but cars
are sparse on the road, narrow and winding
stretch with no guard rails, but pines mask how far
down, until we break out of the shrouding
forest to a broad, arcing highway, canyon
on the left, open and bright as a sling
shot, like a pause in infinite space, when
the steering wheel turns through my hands. Grabbing
it tight, I strain, but everything’s shifting.
(6)
I grip the wheel tight, but everything’s shifting,
trees whipped back and forth in sudden wind,
trailer in the other lane, still sliding
left while the car heads right, the mountain side.
I turn hard left and brake. Kenny slides on the seat.
The trailer jerks over more before it
turns back right, too far, so now I steer right,
and I coax it back to the road, but the
trailer lunges, tilts, falls on its side across
the oncoming lane, stops a foot or two
from the edge. My arms ache. I lower my head
on the steering wheel, then look up at my kids’
reflections, distant, bunched up on one side.
I look for warning signs of that sudden wind.
(7)
I look for signs warning of a sudden wind,
when the wind goes silent, still. Is this what
death is? Thin trees unbent. No cars anywhere.
Nothing that whips my hair or brushes my
cheek. The moment before the kids rouse themselves
to shift back to their places. By still I mean
the space between the trailer and the edge
of highway on the bow of the canyon.
Suspended. A fresh wind pulls me back. The orange trailer
makes a warning for cars, but none come before
the highway patrol officer calls the tow
truck to right the trailer, set us on our way.
The blue Plymouth makes a slow arc around
the looming summer sky. Winter’s over.
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