Dane Johns
Drinking from the bottles
We hadn’t broken on the sidewalk just yet,
In your 2003 Toyota Corolla,
We were off-key, belting out,
“You’re calling me a safe bet!”
You were leaving for war the next day,
We both swore that things would stay the same,
But then when you returned,
They weren’t,
You weren’t,
We weren’t.
3 a.m., eating at an all-night, truck-stop diner,
Again, talking the existence (or non-existence)
Of God,
When an old man walked in,
Seemingly just to tell us
How many times he’d been abducted by aliens.
(Somehow, both a point for and against the whole existence of God thing.)
That was the summer
When Mom passed away,
We all felt that hole growing in the middle of our chests,
Already knowing
That things would never be the same.
I was having a breakdown at the sink,
When Dad pointed out to me,
A solitary, little blue bird, there on the clothesline.
He said, “That right there, Dane. That’s our sign,
That she made it to heaven, all right.”
Well, alright.