There is beauty in choosing
when you can’t. Listen:
I thought dad had some,
idled at those lights.
And I would sit, buckled in back,
and wait for his fingers to snap.
And then our signal lit green
as he smiled and eased us out into the world.
It wasn’t all sorrow I found when later
I learned the trick:
he watched the crosswalk count down
before I knew numbers myself,
and all those cars I couldn’t see
would slow.
Then—as if it were choice—
it was his turn to go.
