I can’t recline the driver’s seat so I sit straight-backed like a guru,
crack a window the air fresh as a silver needle.
I’m past the bald head of Shasta, that dormant god, past the rust-colored pines eaten by fire.
Back home, I know my mother’s asleep, the space heater ticking at her feet.
She’s ninety-four and cold. From feeling no love the doctor says,
and I wonder if he means she feels no love for anyone, or she feels no love from me
because I don’t love her, despite the years of meals and clean socks, free education and down payments.
Now I hear the poets tell me I must bear witness to the smell and sound,
of her big-boned hands as she erased me.
But I’d rather go north, say amen to my lack of gratitude, sing hallelujah to this great emptiness
as I move closer and closer to the coldest place on Earth.
originally published in San Pedro River Review
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