Driving Rachel to Sleep: October 1994

Sunlight plaits your hair,
then morphs into a
tangerine ball
bouncing towards me in
the rear-view mirror.

I glance up to the
reflection of a
wriggling toddler,
clasped by the indigo
arms of your new car seat.

I can’t ever seem to get you down.

Seven sunset clouds
crawl by on my right,
as if they were the
last red cows returning
to the tobacco ad barn.

Your eyelids begin
to open and close —
foam atop the indigo
waves of a small storm.

I decide to drive
further; worried that
a vagrant street lamp
will jar you awake.

Heading for home I
embrace the roads
you will travel in
the years ahead

Gary D. Grossman
Last Stanza Poetry Journal #14 October 2023