Driving to the Nashville Airport, April 4, 2017

In a ten year old Honda on I-65
I drink in fresh redbuds through the wet slap of wipers
Breathing back and forth, intermittent arcs, respiring.

Dawn is small
and the spring rain tastes inviolable.
I drive my daughter to the airport.

The galaxy spins in my car’s backseat
with hazel eyes and rings tattooed on her fingers
She is flying away. Again.

I don’t care.
I really don’t.
The wiper blades judge, “No. No. Lies.”

“Closer and closer,”
the milemarkers scream reflectively.
She is my whole life in the mirror in the backseat. I am dying.

A straight-line wind knocks me two lanes toward the median
(Object in mirror is closer than it appears)
Every breath from all of my life so far stops, sopping up all the time on my plate.

I see her blink in the backseat
her face reflected to mine and mine back to hers,
the infinite recursion, brooding between us, panics.

Her mouth an “O”,
I find control.
We grin.