San Antonio Morning Commute – Poetry

or: conversation between you, your mother and me

The radio tells me to listen to my heart as she appears in purple hues, jungle greens and copper from the dashboard. 

The ac is a blind spot in my vision. 

1 is silver, 5 is red, 3 is green and 0 is white. 

Come on – join the joyride. 

I’m pleased to meet you, she tells me but I’m not sure if it’s typical politeness or she really means it. In an endless field of lupines she stands as the mountains behind her rise. The corduroy scratches on her thighs and everytime you catch a glimpse of her she looks like death. But she ain’t dead yet – graceful roller curls against a steely sky.

And I keep collecting father figurines and you keep collecting dust.

We exchange second hand experiences. I lived through your Sunday morning masses, through the potholes in dirt roads of the outskirts of San Antonio which I likely will only ever see through your eyes.

It’s arts and crafts day at the GI forum and I’d make you a flower crown for your first hand veteran stories.

But those wooden churches don’t have the same echo to them as their counterparts in stone and the spirits made me throw the chair through the stained glass window – again. There is a piano in the distance and I’m feeling everything at once.