THE CHILD - CIRCLES

Senior Year

I feel your impending absence
Like a phantom limb
Not yet severed

I follow you around
With college brochures
Questions
Suggestions
Poems
You must feel you will trip
Over me
Every time you
Turn

While you are still physically here
Your eyes look through me
I feel your intention
Moving
Out the door
Down the road
Across the country
Away

I try
Not to look too long
Listen too hard
Or touch too much

My meditation
To learn to open these hands
Meant to shelter
Which might smother now

Uncurl the clenching
And simply
Let go

And you
Gracefully
Side step my anxious
Following tread
And graciously pretend
Not to feel my tears
In your hair
In the dark


©Edwina Peterson Cross