Phone Call from a Brown Son
My son calls driving home from work
in the dark, with one headlight,
he mentions too casually.
My heart the beating wings of a trapped thing,
I manage the smallest sips of air.
In the dark he casually mentions one headlight,
and I am a deer standing in my kitchen
choking in a trickle of air.
When do you think you might get that fixed?
I try for nonchalance.
I am a deer standing in my kitchen, suffocating
in the floodlamp of a single imagined headlight.
It’s OK. They can’t stop you for that, he says,
my feigned dispassion a failure.
We don’t say what we’re both thinking.
They can’t stop you for that, he repeats.
In my chest a trapped thing’s beating wings,
kitchen crackling silence, we can’t say
what we’re both thinking when my son calls
driving alone in the dark.
*
Vicki Boyd has made a professional life in education and publishing. She owes her writing life to Mrs. Williford, first grade teacher, who coached her in composing her first sentence, a dictation. When Vicki added embellishments, Mrs. Williford delighted in that, enough to set Vicki writing for life. Vicki has only recently begun writing for publication, her first piece appearing in Teach.Write: A Writing Teachers’ Literary Journal. She lives and walks and kayaks with her wife and their dog Rosie in and around Portsmouth, NH.
Beautiful, heartbreaking poem. Love the story in the bio too.
Vicki, It was wonderful to wake up to your poem. “I know her,” I yelled to my kitchen! Heartbreaking but gorgeous. Thank you. Looking forward to seeing more!
Hi, Laurie! I’m thrilled you stumbled on my poem here. And the image of you yelling to your kitchen made me laugh out loud. Thank you for reaching out in this way.
Truly terrifying that this is a real fear for so many: driving while non-white. Deceptively simple in form, but so powerful in content. Brava!
Oh, this poem. So full of fear and love … oh. oh. oh.
Amazing…real…and relevant. Love seeing this from you.
Lovely poem Vicki. I’m preparing to teach ‘Get Out’ this week, so this goes with that well.
Vicki, thank you for your poem which expresses the threat of 400 years of white supremacy against people of dark skin and how this racism casts a spell which you express so well in your poem.
Yes. The worried tightrope we walk: protect them from harm, protect them from our fear. Perfect poem.