It’s the summer after the spring when I late-dropped organic
chemistry and took college romance instead. Grandma, who
studied pharmacy, prescribes our summer routine around my
make-up class. She fills me out on four meals a day. We make
daily walks to mass—she says her prayers, and I pray to Neptune
for waves. We sneak out after communion. I drive his old
Ford Falcon to class. It floats like a pontoon boat, glides along
leaving old paint along the way. We visit her son every Sunday
at the Veteran’s cemetery with freshly cut asphodel flowers.
Years later, she says he came to her in a dream; “It’s okay,
Mom,” he said. She joined him soon after that.
hitchhiking
a classic model stops
and opens a door
grew up in New York’s rustic Hudson Valley, attended Notre Dame, practiced forensic science, and now lives in San Diego with his golden-doodle dog. Some of his work is found in Dewdrop, New Verse News, San Pedro River Review, Gyroscope, Healing Muse, and many journals of haiku, haibun, and tanka.
