She drives home to
a Dolly Parton
background, blinking
her fatigue away.

Asleep in the back,
her girls sit as limp
as the dolls that sit

beside them. On her left
she passes the neighbor’s dark
house, curtains closed,

the only light wavers
from the basement,
a sort of flickering

like a televsion. She glances
in the seat behind her;
her youngest has her face

pressed against the window.
She breathes on the glass
and leaves the fog there,

shrinks down in the vinyl
seat, curling into a ball,
anonymous and tight.

12/20/2004

Author's Note: Always a draft...

Posted on 12/21/2004
Copyright © 2026 Lisa Marie Brodsky