phrase I repeated in my mind
on the drive down I-71 S
from our home to the Taft Rd
exit, where the asphalt splits
and I always take the wrong
part of the fork no matter
how many times I drive
this stretch of highway.
My mind won’t place me there,
not today, or tomorrow, or
those four days in December,
when the drive became a ritual
and in the evenings, after the nurses
said enough, it’s almost Christmas
go home, sleep in your beds, not
hunched over like a burlap bag
of coffee beans on a storeroom floor;
after enough forced us
to the parking garage, our hanging
breath our only blanket—
I watched from the car window
orange lights streak against rock salt
and snow, and no one
in our small family
said a word.
Photo by Caleb Jones on Unsplash
