Today's poem is by Geffrey Davis
King County Metro
In Seattle, in 1982, my mother beholds this man
boarding the bus, the one she's alreadyturning into my father. His style (if you can
call it that): disarming disregard-aloudHawaiian-print shirt and knee-high tube socks
that reach up the deep tone of his legs,toward the dizzying orange of running shorts.
Outside, the gray city blocks lurchpast wet windows, as he starts his shy sway
down the aisle. Months will passbefore he shatters his ankle during a Navy drill,
the service discharging him back into the everydayteeth of the world. Two of four kids will arrive
before he meets the friend who teaches himthe art of roofing and, soon after, the crack pipe
the attention it takes to manage eitherwithout destroying the hands. The air brakes gasp
as he approaches my mother's row,each failed rehab and jail sentence still
decades off in the distance. So much waitsin the fabulous folds of tomorrow.
And my mother, who will take twenty yearsto burn out her love for him, hesitates a moment
before making room beside herthe strikingbrown face, poised above her head, smiling.
My mother will blame all that happens,both good and bad, on this smile, which glows now,
ready to consume half of everything it gives.
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