Wendy Taylor Carlisle
For My Son by Way of Explanation
In the inner weather of the Impala, the voices
instructed us:
Go ahead. The small kindness
costs nothing
requires only bravery. The car had a big engine,
I put my foot in it, sweating. Just over the
Georgia line,
a small town JP married us. We were underdone
and on the lam,
carrying cardboard suitcases and fungible wounds.
I hadn’t yet heard a clenched hand is as bad as any
fist,
your father didn’t know he was lonely.
You were the tiny star
in my belly’s firmament. That week,
every breakfast was cheese grits, bacon and
sausage—
No corn flakes. The Playboy Advisor to answer our questions.
The story of Job was superfluous to
the engine that drove us. In retreat from the broken
edge of a parlor circle, we didn’t go all the way
far enough. Driving after dark, reckoning by the stars, threatening to
leave
again and after all,
what did we leave you? A trip diary. A slow dissolving scar.
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