Poem

Mother Won’t Move

There’s a hook in the hall
where keys once dangled
but no escape
from change that clouds
the mind or sky.

It’s for your own good,
her boy had said,
pocketing the car keys.

The dusk split with lightning
unsettles her less
than his rustling legal papers.

Behind drapes fisted shut,
a barricade chair on buckling slats
leans hard against the doorknob.

This front will pass. All it takes
is a woman stubborn with survival,
flashlight in hand, alone in an eye
blind to change closing in.