phrase I repeated in my mindon the drive down I-71 Sfrom our home to the Taft Rdexit, where the asphalt splitsand I always take the wrongpart of the fork no matterhow many times I drivethis stretch of highway.My mind won’t place me there,not today, or tomorrow, orthose four days in December,when the drive became a ritualand in the evenings, after the nursessaid enough, it’s almost Christmasgo home, sleep in your beds, nothunched over like a burlap bagof coffee beans on a storeroom floor;after enough forced usto the parking garage, our hangingbreath our only blanket—I watched from the car windoworange lights streak against rock saltand snow, and no onein our small familysaid a word.
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