Poems for Moms II

This is a poem that's been sitting in my head for a year or so. It's been in subconscious workshop. After I wrote the poem about Valerie's mom, I thought, "Have I ever really written a poem about my Mom?" I have, but they were really about me and not her. So I sat down this morning and decided, "This is the day. This is the day I hammer out that poem." Boom. It happened. So this is about my Mom.

We Never Chased Rainbows

We never chased rainbows,
we only chased firetrucks.

Once we chased an ambulance through the parting sea,
caravanning behind in our wood sided station wagon,
all the way to their drama.
When the stretcher came out slow,
we were all ashamed and drove home
with no jabber, no shoving,
not even finger shooting of cars from the wayback.

There were never any fathers in this,
even though there were some then.
This was Mom’s fascination with something worse.

We chased a balloon.
A Bank of America or Met Life or something,
all the way for hours,
driving and weaving through Michigan country roads,
sometimes losing it in the canopy
then one of us would point, point, and yell,
and off again—
through Bangor and Gobles, Watervliet, Coloma
till finally it let go its one big breath.
My Mom got out and walked to them
like it was natural, like they wanted to be chased.

But firetrucks—
we’d whip around to find the x marks the spot smoke
and park like it was fireworks, stay in our car like a drive-in movie,
I like to remember it we even had popcorn
the actors on the lawn, a lady once with a look in her eyes
like my Mom looked in her eyes.

Once, we followed the sirens to a gun shop all lit up,
weirdly quiet without the shushing of water, the firemen and EMTs
taking cover behind their trucks because bullets were firing out,
like a last stand, all of us waiting for those inside to give up.
They said we had to get way back,
but Mom just stood us all behind her,
like she always did.