Cameron Morse

Mom takes my arm

in the Walmart parking lot,

walking along the slanted column

 

of cars in early winter dark

toward a distant spot into which

she slid her RAV4, far enough

away to silence the inner worrywart,

seer of wanton doors kicked open

or flung, runaway shopping carts,

 

a note not even tucked below

her windshield wiper. Mom takes

my arm, my father gone, filing

 

for divorce in Guam, for no

undivided property, that insidious

double negative betraying

 

a desire to halve her homestead,

scatter her nestlings to the wind.

Mom takes my arm and tells me

 

a client came in recently

who had heard the pop, pop, pop!

of gunshots where we had just

 

been digging through a bin

of DVDs or perusing bottles

of body wash. Angels in lime-green

 

vests had ushered her into a back

room to wait the twenty minutes

it took the police to arrive.