Alma College 1978
You let me drive the Mercury north
for most of those two hours
wearing that light blue blouse
or was it a pink sweater,
for teenage sons only remember what is spilled
& what is stained;
dropped off for my immersion,
wandering the little town on your own
what did see before you found me
hunched alone on the grass,
where you sat down unordained;
gently you asked, about my guided separation,
my easy-assembled alienation,
now a Wyeth’s World reproduction,
behind the endzone scoreboard,
behind scotch pine saplings,
words frozen warmly as liniment applied,
a vague purpose undeterred by
my restless reticence,
or my tendency to withhold expressions of wonderment denied.
All of us have become unreliable narrators
in this unreliable world, yet
Alma Mater for nourishing mother,
how unflinchingly fitting
for our two-parent three-child
single-mom de facto
household,
five long days a week
and sometimes Saturdays,
like this special yesterday,
following a final glance
through a 1940 church door window,
when you drove me home
from Alma, Michigan,
fast asleep in the front seat,
drifting in dreams
of the unattainable,
& the unknown.
