Name: Robin L. Sauerwein
Minneapolis, MN
married; two kids
occupation: writer
Sometimes I think I must see him every day. That is not right.
But I must talk to him. Things my mother would never have said.
And we had telephones then too, but just as the blind cannot discover sight
A watched phone never rings, yet I stare and startle myself with ghosts of voices now dead and wait for the phone to ring, The clock nudges me, it’s time.
"I’ve taken out the garbage, I’m ready for school"
At 13, my son still knows his mother’s wishes.
He has things to tell me: Yet, nothing else is new.
I know my words touch him but they leave no puncture marks. Mine
enter in soft breezes, ease in quietly and settle like blue snowflakes on Superior’s trails. Things do fall into place. What you must, you can, I tell him.
He knows now that he has his foot in the right shoe.
I clap, he bows, then bends up like a Maple tree growing year after year,
Stronger and taller, until he drops his helicopters and flies off, away from here.
7/29/00
Robin Sauerwein
