Christine Shook

Trip Home

Mom and I decide to take the scenic route through New England.  It will be a long trip, but we can stop at the lake for a swim.  The day is warming and sunlight sifts through whirls of gnats.  Gold birch stands beside the road.  We see a cardboard sign for fresh peaches and decide to stop.  We buy several.  Juice drips down my chin and she hands me a napkin. 

Towards home, we pass fields of rose-hued heather.  I tell her my dream to live in this landscape when things are different.  She seems to know things should be different but doesn’t ask.  Dusk falls in muted colors and washes out the continuum of the highway.

commuters
crowd the exit . . .
this hand on mine
I know 
without looking

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About the Author

Christine Shook lives in New York City and has been writing tanka for over 20 years. She studied with Clark Strand, author of Seeds from a Birch Tree. Her tanka appeared in Ribbons and tanka prose in Haibun Today.