After the Visit
Even as he pulls into my driveway,
and I’m happy that safely he is here,
inside I struggle with negative
projections that to him I don’t reveal.
Each day passes fast, then his visit ends.
Resigned, I’m on the porch to watch as he
packs his blue car with bags and gifts to take.
No tears, I will wave him out of my view.
I must not focus on such visions now
that he has just arrived, we have not hugged,
must reacquaint, me and this man, my son,
so tall, so bright his brain and smile, my boy.
Though when he departs, an adult again,
I’ll linger in his room, still cluttered but
then empty, and there I’ll write new poems
that fill space but do not lose the echo.
Elaine Anne Westheimer 