Wave
On the morning
that he set out from Colorado,
I went to hug my firstborn,
who was going away to college
by the ocean and, at once,
a mighty swell rose up
off the coast of California
and came crashing inland, all the way
across a third of the continent,
on a collision course with me,
the sheer force of it owing, I suppose,
to pride, love, excitement
and a sudden, overwhelming sadness
that nearly swept me under,
flooding my eyes as it hit me how,
the entire time, everything
was cresting to this moment,
when the world would rush in at last
and claim him as its own.
First published in The Stillwater Review, Vol. 13, 2023.
