Mother, sitting in the storm, by Francine Witte

           all goldfish while the water washes over. She moves her head from side to side. As if she can catch the rain.
           
           My father has taken off again. Strapped a valise to the top of the car. Been gone this time for two weeks now. Mother says things like “he loves me” as if she can it make it true.
           
           My brother says things like my father’s a trap, and it would be good for my mother to melt.
           
           I say things like we could maybe bring her an umbrella, and these are our parents, you know?

           In the front yard, tree branches in curls. Floodwaters stitching the street.

           You don’t remember how awful dad was, my brother says. The women he’d bring home. How they’d sit out front in the car with our father, their blue eyelids, their bobbly heads.

           How we became dolls whose legs couldn’t move. 

           And so, now, when my father floats his car back up the driveway, and my mother shimmies like a frenzy fish moving towards food, I am not surprised. We will go back to like always. Still, for a flicker, I thought my brother could escape, but instead, he sloshes towards my father, helps him heft the valise off the top of the car, and that’ll make how many times in a row? 
​

Francine Witte is the author of four poetry chapbooks and two flash fiction chapbooks. Her full-length poetry collection, Café Crazy, has recently been published by Kelsay Books. She is a reviewer, blogger, photographer, and a former English teacher. She lives in NYC. ​
​​

---