Rain for three years now.
This week, downpours
drumming on an anniversary of ending.
It’s hard not to sink in the muck.
Trees, bushes and grass –
verdant and alive as can be.
He and I, dead three years now.
The sky shifts from woolen comfort to charcoal concern.
When I’m making lunch,
when I’m alone at midnight,
I listen to “Grey Street” on repeat,
remember the DMB concerts I heard it live
thinking – this is me.
The grey reaches my grown son in the city.
I sit in the mountains
listening to his heavy words mix
with angry cars, angrier people
as he walks from midtown to the Village,
wanders Bushwick.
I remember navigating the curves
of the Delaware Water Gap
as my teenage son
asks the question I’ve been waiting
for his whole life.
When I say yes, he’s quiet.
Then –
it’s hard to wrap my head
around the thought that my existence
changed the course of two lives.
I hold the wheel tight.
Look at him, back to the road.
I always wanted to be a mom.
I take a curve too quickly
as he looks out over the river.
