Mother lies

There is nothing to see,

but as she tends

the town, I find

this is what ignorance

tastes like—

satin and discarded gum.

When she says,

we’re moving, I decide

I’ll hang an elegy

in my new bedroom

for every i-don’t-know

she spells out—

because each syllable

is another piece of this town

chipping away. Farewell

to yogurt cups

and calloused faces, sticky

streets we wander down.

Mother smooths the radio dial

as we drive, the cool

of piano trickling in, numbing

the ride. Her words rub

against the stereo,

one voice under another:

there, there. In the rearview,

as the radio wanes

and we unhear the town,

I watch the streetlights

loosen one-by-one

their footholds in the soil.

-

This piece was previously featured on School Lunch of Lunch Ticket on 8/19/20.