Son, Andrew, parent-to-be,
drives upstate in the dark.
I imagine all sorts of horrors
on forbidding highways up north:
a scampering deer,
a drunken driver,
a blown tire,
a broken highway.
My imagination pumps into overdrive:
a giant ogre,
a hungry bear,
“Deliverance” characters,
alien abduction,
police stop.
No matter how old your child,
as a parent, you worry.
Does my worry help him?
Decidedly not.
He got there safely anyway.
THE POETRY OF THE GAME