1.
I became my mom
The spring my son took the wheel
Driving home
knowledge
2.
Crimson cheery red
Painted lips and painted nails
Leave trails
down his back
3,
Nerves are raw, breaking
Hearts watch leaves fall from the
trees
Thus descends autumn
We packed up the old Volkswagen
And made the trip
Summers.
Sometimes
we didn’t
Speak for states
For even then trouble
Was brewing,
Thick
and cloudy
Like sweet tea that cooled our tempers.
When we passed through
Georgia,
Meandering the clay roads
He ritually pulled over to the
same
Fruit stand,
Trees shading the jewels.
Plump peaches,
astonishingly delicious -
The juice always dripped, bursting the
skin,
Mouth drenched in peach
Never failed his tongue
Felt fine and we
both
Smiled and didn’t stop while
Tucked into the grove.
Sometimes in
Winter when I brush my hair,
Now grey,
I scream, “I
need a Georgia peach!”
And he comes running.
