“Try out your Spanish,” Mother says
as we get under way. Father leans back;
the passengers stare ahead.
I furrow my brow to speed our bus
past her request: soon enough
we’re rattling across desert.
The trip is Mother’s wish, her want.
She’d been here with her first husband,
the secret one, the one attached
to her youth. (Only fate
could have arranged that bored Saturday,
my aimless curiosity about drawers,
and that news-clip giveaway: “Mrs.
Willomet, bright-faced assistant
in the office of Fenton Assurance,
where every care is taken, and all
situations embraced…”)
Signs appear; we reach a village version
of the city we’d left, where pastel houses
are blown like kites against the hills
and boys lean into bicycle grips – beaus
it seems to me, singers of the sad
ballads on our driver’s radio.
People stand, press forward.
“There’s one,” Mother says. “She’s pretty.
Ask her the time…donde vas…”
People! Mothers! What is it
they want from us?
On the driver’s radio
the ballads play on and on.
