engine roaring, propelling
a car going eighty-something
on a wide slab of white colored concrete
and a woman
and a girl-woman with
awkward knees that her mother could barely recognize
after the weeks and weeks spent apart.
Hard Sun burning the passenger's skin in the old convertible
and the speakers blasting skies and ears with “losing my religion”.
Not the girl-woman’s choice.

girl-woman's ears stuffed with
white earbuds
playing loud lullabies that
lead her back two hundred miles,
to the picaresque moments she remembers:
the dining room with her friends,
the small room with her roommate,
the seven fans in the room creating paths of of twisted circulation,
an attempt to stifle the heat from the Hard Sun...

woman tears girl-woman from her reverie
(which girl-woman resents)
to tell her that next year is just around the corner.
girl woman looks away from her mother's eyes
and each, in their own yearning,
sit in silence as they drive into the Hard Sun.