Sometimes, for no reason, I remember
a car ride with my mother, driving
the old frontage road from school to home,
and I don’t remember what we spoke of,
don’t remember which car we were in,
don’t remember how old I was,
I remember only the way a bow of light
seemed to connect the sun
to the hood of our car, as if we were being
led forward by light itself, and
I, who knew so little of life, felt so deeply
and sweetly tethered to beauty.
Decades later, I still recall that awe,
but now I focus more on the woman
who sat in the driver’s seat, consider
how luminous she is, consider
the radiant bow that links her life to mine,
how even hundreds of miles away
she leads me with her light.
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