My Malady begins with a "W"

I am suffering from spring fever. We have been oh so blessed with temperatures in the high 60's to mid 70's for the past week, and it is supposed to last all the way into this weekend. Daffodils are blooming, way too soon. I understand their urge.

I feel compelled to go, do, hike, run, and skip through my days, even the rainy ones. Warm weather makes me giddy.

This was published in Sacred Fools Press a few years ago. Someone asked me if the communal bed referred to incest. Not at all. We were poor and we shared the "bed" when we traveled. When Dad tossed a mattress into the bed of his panel truck, I knew we were going on a trip.

These days we travel in comfort and stay in motels.


WANDERLUST

Spring intoxicates me with memories of a bygone era

when every day was a childish adventure for Dad,

and he ran with wanderlust

when the winds spoke to his Native American soul.

I was along for the ride.

Snake-like Route 66 hummed under my body.

In the back of Dad’s old panel truck 

I lay on bare, blue and white ticking,

mattress buttons and little brother

poking my bony ribs.

Tallied white lines and Guernsey’s 
grazing in pastures as we headed
nowhere, somewhere, anywhere

Dad’s rambling soul would take us.

With a dollar in his pocket and a dream in his heart,

the four winds tugged him hither and yon,

cast us into unknown towns where temporary day jobs, thrift stores

and restrooms with cold water sinks provided vacation basics.

Dad didn’t have a dollar to spare

or a dime’s worth of sense.

We lodged on the run;

my mattress a communal bed.

Mom wrapped herself in a comma

Around Dad’s exclamation point limbs.

I snuggled in a fetal question mark,

My brother scrunched in a period at my feet.

Nowadays, when cherry blossoms blanket the ground, 

Old Route 66 wraps me up in asphalt arms

snakes me down winding roads that lead to long ago.

I feel the hum and I must

Go.