Windshield wipers
bat away raindrops.
Mom is driving. I ask where are we going?
(I think,
(Are we running away?)
She & Dad are
not getting along,
might get a divorce,
if they do, who would I want to live with—
*
For years after “going to bed”
I’ve been lying in the hallway
where Mom & I wait
during tornado warnings/
watches before climbing into
Dad power-walks out
the front door,
his eyes scanning the sky
for funnels
sleepless,
waiting for voices
to grow tense. Inevitably:
“Mary, why don’t you see a psychiatrist?”
“John, how can talking to one help?”
*
A dozen times over as many years
she locks herself in a bathroom
clutching a bottle of pills
she threatens to take
as Dad
mows the lawn
[The final six lines appeared under the title “Harmless threat” in One Sentence Poems, November 2023.]David Q. Hutcheson-Tipton is a poet and semi-retired physician. His poems have found homes in Red Eft Review, One Sentence Poems, and Unlost. He lives near (and occasionally in) the Colorado Rocky Mountains with three miniature poodles (a few other people, as well).