Big Bend

A poem by Madeline Grace.

Dad doesn’t think 
he’ll ever go back
to Oklahoma. 

What does it feel like
when you have no one left 
to bring you home?

A boy on a class trip, 
crossing the Texas/Mexico 
border by donkey—

Nancy Cooper
wants to be his girlfriend
& teachers are making out

between brush & canyon.
Sleeping under the Southern sky,
Dad is too full of wonder

to close his eyes, stealing
sleep from his classmates, exclaiming
at every falling

star, wishing
for simple things—
a deck with a good view. 

Fifty years pass &
he is waking up
in the dark

to drive me to the airport.
We watch yellow sky spread
over casinos & high rises,

bathing the Sierra Nevada 
mountains in soft morning.
He still remembers 

simple things 
& I understand
what it is to be

too full of wonder
to close my eyes.