We knew the words but we did not
know what they meant. We wrote them
down, tore them off sheets, let them flutter
out the windows of our speeding cars.
In the heat, smoke and faulty
isolation, each piece of the
world breaking off like a tooth
long infected, you were framed
perfectly in the rearview mirror.
We had many, many opinions. This
did not change as summer wore
on, sweltered behind our masks.
We were held, suspended, plaster
falling off the wire frames of us while
some of us could not breathe.
Someday, when you open this, you
should also know how the rain and sun
came in perfect measure, grew lilies
so large they could swallow us
whole, how we laughed like crazy.
Carol Tiebout lives and writes in Edmonds, Washington. For the past seventeen years she has also worked in hospice and with people experiencing mid- to late stage dementia.
