The Day After Taking Our Daughter to College
We had taken our daughter to college,
driven in two cars, three and a half hours each way.
Like a good Latino family, we took Abuelita.
We unloaded the pillow pets and the yearbooks in our
daughter’s room.
We drove to the nearest Wal-Mart to purchase a laptop.
We stopped for dinner - PF Changs - all three were crying.
On the drive back, around 11pm, still a half-hour from home,
Our daughter calls: she doesn’t know how to work the laptop.
This morning, at breakfast, we eat our beans and eggs.
Abuelita is crying, she says our daughter has nothing to
eat.
We try to convince Abuelita that the cafeteria is included
in the payment.
Abuelita remains steadfastly unconvinced.
Like a good White Male, I avoid the situation
By going outside to get the ladder and the limb pruners.
I start to trim the tree whose branches have been overgrown
for two months.
The limbs begin to fall around my face, around my arms.
In a thick elbow of one branch, there is a cluster of twigs:
an abandoned nest.
All the little birds have flown.
MR
2015-0823
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