After All I’ve Done For You

Now, to the Good Mother List
of things I’ve done for you, I’ll add
last night, when I wanted
tea and toast in my pajamas. Instead
I drove to the city in rain and dark
for dinner with an old friend in a crowded restaurant—-
Not because I was anxious to see my friend or eat a $15 salad,
but for you and that question in your eyes
that wonders if I’ll be okay when you leave home.
Truth is, some days I’ll be content
playing my own music,
not cooking or tripping over your shoes,
watching Downton Abbey instead of James Bond.
And some days I’ll be bereft
mourning the lost country of childhood
we can never return to
an ache I can’t describe
which is just as well since you suspect
but don’t want to know
it exists.