The Memory of the Commute

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                                                                                                                                                      My childhood summertime commute 

whose soundtrack was the armistice of morning

was a ride aboard a most reassuring breeze

the kind that blew kisses to schooners

and made our living room curtains dance

like the veils of Mata Hari.

I would make my way past a battalion of trees 

dressed in their army greens

who quietly sacrificed their

lives to defend my right to sadness.

I voyaged past a  playground 

whose memories to this day

I continue to plagiarize 

to tell the story of my mom,

who always smelled like the exhale of roses

and hemorrhaged from her thorns,

and my dad

who discovered early on

It was the little things in life

that brought him comfort

from the enmities of the ghost world

like the cordiality of chestnuts 

and the succulence of peaches 

slurped over a most willing sink.

The wind carried me faithfully

towards an assured future

right on schedule 

right on time

for years

past confrontations, capitulations

and towering monuments of regret.

Until now.

For despite its infallibility

the wind has finally forsaken me

and left me in this quarantine of old age

where the only thing that’s left to soothe me

like chestnuts and peaches

is the memory of the commute.

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