I wonder what is stirring
in my little son’s heart
as he gazes out over the contour
of my cheekbone
from the back seat.

I feel his thinking eyes quietly

watching me.

I, the woman who has pulverized our life as we knew it.

I, who left his father, strangling the remains of a cyclone of aggression and transgression and sorry.

I, the woman who loves his knowing smile more deeply than any valley has scarred the surface of the earth.

What must it feel like to be such a small person,
with tiny fair features and crumpled yellow hair,
whose memories of this car ride may only be a distant ache and tug?

 

 

Copyright Merenda Cecelia Woodward

Art by Peter Sugarman