~ from Jill


Kansas Road Trip 2005

My cousin is the driver on this road trip
through patchwork fields of sunflowers
and blue blue sky.
We once bathed in shared water,
sat on tattered blankets
while our fathers lit firecrackers
for Fourth of July.

Your Dad read to us,
and mine flipped backwards
into the pool, making us laugh till lemonade
ran from our noses. Yours
painted a line and coached you
to run fast , mine taught me to
lift my arms, duck my head,
and dive.

Do you remember the sprinklers
we ran through, the chlorine sting
of our grandparents pool in Phoenix,
scent of Coppertone lotion rubbed
persistently into our shoulders,
until even the scent
of coconut and sun, will carry us back
to my father’s shoulders, your father's voice:

“Mother Bear, put your apron away,
We are going to go on a picnic today.”

Sleeping rag-tag in the same quilted bed,
one blond head
one red. I want to tell you now
how sorry I am for pinching you,
for making you
cry, blow a dandelion wish
from this rented car --–

that we will whisper our secrets again
past bedtime, and our fathers
will always come home.