Driving Instructions: a sonnet

Driving Instructions

by Anne Panning

That night when you leave your mother's
dead body behind in the hospital, make
sure to look back one last time. Don't
forget this is finite, like the last green
slippers she knit you for Christmas
that will last one more winter, then snag
on a stray nail, unraveling right before
your eyes. And whatever you do, take the car
keys from your father, who will insist on driving
home even as the sky clots orange
with clouds of forgetting. "Anyone know any good
jokes?" he will say as he barrels down
the freeway, fine tuning the radio. Say:
no. Say: not yet. Say: let's slow down.


~Lake Affect Magazine, 2011