Voyage

On the other end of the couch, my son
is reading Moby Dick, and I realize
he won't stay home forever. This stranger
who could barely sit still on movie night
holds the paperback close to his face
like a captain studying a map
in the dim light of a cabin.
He says a friend from school put him
up to it. I had been that young.
I can hear from the crack of his voice
that he's talking about a girl. A girl
with round glasses and better grades
who pushed him in the hallway,
sent fistfuls of allusions
into his belly then took off
with his allowance of air.
I want to tell him this might fail,
that in the end, his ship could still capsize
and he would sooner learn
he doesn't need to change for anybody.
But I let him take this journey on his own.
It will be my parting gift for this
and all the other journeys he would take,
the first splash of cold before he sails
upon the wakes of great pursuits or if,
during an otherwise perfect day like this,
he finds himself in a sudden rain.

Provincial Rate

On the day I left for the city,
a friend and I leaned
against the opposite sides
of a mint-green motorcycle
drinking Coke.

He said one day, jobs
would pour into town
and no one else would have to leave.

From behind the hills, dark clouds
marched over the barren trees,
over the bottles we left on top
of a concrete fence and over
the women standing by the clotheslines.

The rain would never come.

Dorothy

The tornado never came.
The local radio said
better safe than sorry.
By 12:30, the woman
who would become my mother
returned to a dusty neighborhood
that wasn't blown away.
In the parking lots, porters
on lunch break played checkers
for each other's boots, cigarettes
sticking off their mouths
in a time before people
understood what's good for them.
My mother borrowed a light
from a boy who's quick with a smile
and gave herself away
to the whirlwind. Five kids
and a divorce—the weather vane
of the years spun madly
and screeched to a halt.

On the day the doctor said
there was only getting by,
my mother, now slow and gray,
ambled into the front yard,
the grass parting to the weight
of her shower sandals, and waited
as if an old friend had agreed
to meet her there. From the street,
the wind rushed in, ruffling
her loose sleeves, until her arms
slowly lifted from her sides.