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Errand
Beside me in the blue Toyota van
you lean against the seat and stare
at the billboards, at the sunset
silently taking the world into
your mind in what proportions
I can only guess—does the Marlboro
cowboy looming before us color
your thoughts since you have seen
the movies that explain his lung cancer
death, or do you look beyond obstructions
to the purpling horizon, miniature pines
and dark houses, marking the place where
the earth curves out of sight? At the
periphery
of my vision I am aware of your
nine-year-old
body in jeans and baseball cap, freckled
cheeks
and luminous dark eyes full and remote
as twin planets, as time’s shadow
falling between us.
—Ann Hostetler, Goshen, Indiana,
is Associate Professor of English, Goshen
College.Reprinted
by permission of author and publisher,
all rights reserved, from Empty Room
with Light: Poems (Telford, PA:
DreamSeeker Books, 2002).
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