Barbara Crooker

THE MOTHER OF A DISABLED CHILD DREAMS OF RESPITE^*

I want to drive away from all of this,
go clear to California, buzz out on the freeway
in a white Toyota, put on mirrored sunglasses,
cut off my hair, feel the hot desert air
on my bare arms, see a different moon, starker,
floating in the huge blue ether.
I will stop when I want to, visit a friend from college,
drink green tea by a koi pond under wisteria,
talk until our throats hurt about our complicated lives,
shopping in thrift shops, Thai cooking, about
how fucked-up men are, the many pathways to God.
I will sleep for an entire night, unbroken,
wake in light the color of chablis,
see Anna's hummingbirds at the nectar feeder,
eat granola and peaches for breakfast, eat avocados,
fresh figs, eat this entire edible state of California.
I will shower without having to arrange for child care,
let the steady ache between my shoulders melt away,
I will fall in love with my almond shampoo.
I will learn transcendental meditation,
spend a whole morning in a gallery,
hike in Yosemite where we watch Stellar's jays
in the pinons, surprise a coyote crunching bones.
Then instead of dinner, I will eat ice cream.
I will dance until dawn in the jimsonweed,
I will dance in satin slippers at my broken boy's wedding,
I will drive clear to the Pacific and never come back.

* Originally published in The Pennsylvania Review.

Barbara Crooker's Radiance won the 2005 Word Press First Book award, and was a finalist for the 2006 Paterson Poetry Prize. Her new book, Line Dance is also from Word Press. Recent work appears in Apalachee Review, The MacGuffin, JAMA, Calyx, Rattle, Louisiana Literature, The Valparaiso Poetry Review, and Poetry International. She is the mother of a 23 year old son with autism.