ManicDDaily

Leaving on Family Trip – The Keeping Up of Even Contingent Appearances

We waited long after morning’s blue departed
the backseat we fought over,

for a mother who approached a trip
as an honored guest–scrubbing, vacuuming–
the left house like clean underwear to be worn
in case hit by a car–

like the one where we sat sweating, my brother and I,
out of her way.

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Setting off on a car trip was a very long process in my family, my brother and I sometimes waiting a few hours in the backseat of  ourcar before my father cajoled my mom into the front.  This rather odd portrait, however, is probably a bit unfair to my mother who, rather naturally, liked the idea of having a clean house to come home to, even though, as the poem suggests, there was also probably an element of wanting to have the house look good in case we somehow didn’t make it home. 

My unfairness allowed me to whittle this down to 55 words(minus – okay, lengthy title)–so go tell the G-Man.  I am also linking it to With Real Toads, “words count” with Mama Zen, and is there atmosphere?  I’m not sure you can feel how hot the car or how big my brother’s feet as he claimed backseat territory – still I am linking to dVerse Poets Meeting the Bar prompt hosted by Anna Graham.