in the car
waiting for my son
at airport arrivals
I switch the radio
to his favorite station

looking as though
they've been out
all night partying
the drooping hats
of sunflowers

I don't think I could race
a snail up this hill
with a heat index over 110
even the smallest step
ends in pools of perspiration

a paper cut
while rolling pennies
it's quickly becoming a day
when the best thing to do
is to do nothing

on his tractor explaining
where we should have turned
the farmer's voice
picks up the sound
of a gravel road

the birthday hoopla
as if maintaining
my sanity for another year
is some form
of accomplishment

grayed out faces
in the photograph
our teacher erasing
whatever it was
we had written
on the blackboard

Normally, I write my tanka on five lines. This one is an exception.

"We are linked by blood, and blood is memory without language."

~Joyce Carol Oates

as though a week's vacation
might be longer than
seven days
my son has to sit on
his suitcase to close it

knowing the brutality
of a saint louis summer
the purple coneflower
opens up like
a closed umbrella