Courtesy of Duncan Rawlinson/Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0).
If we perceive barely a sliver of our reality,
the knowable only a small part of what’s out there,
that fat bee bumping up against the window,
the faint sound of a neighbor’s car radio.
And if neither here nor there is where we are
then perhaps the Sunrise Nursing Home is the dawn,
is the new day, perhaps leaving your mother with a stranger
not unlike her—divorced with three kids, threatened
with dismissal if she refuses to work a double shift—
perhaps this is the white flag the world has been waiting for,
the moment before the universe says, Just kidding
and you can turn around and drive your mother back
to a house that’s wheelchair accessible, to the English teacher
(strong, reliable…) you hoped was in your future
or perhaps a sister who likes being in charge, loves
to be right so that every decision you don’t want to make,
so that whatever reality is or isn’t,
at least you’re not in there by yourself.