The sky was pure cold black,
the moon a sliver,
the stars sharp.
Beside me, my wife rested her head
against the window, struggled
to keep her eyes open.
Snoring softly, like kittens,
the children lay,
curled up on the back seat.
As I turned onto a two-lane road in Kentucky,
hundreds of shimmering tombstones
rose in the road ahead.
I drove straight through.
In my rearview, the wisps of granite
wavered and disappeared.
When we got to our new home in Georgia,
the children couldn’t feel their legs.
We had to catch them before they folded
to the cold ground beside the car.
Crying weakly, they kept their eyes closed
while we put them into their pajamas.
Theresa Malphrus Welford, who grew up near Savannah, Georgia, has published poetry, creative nonfiction, book chapters, and two edited collections of poetry, The Paradelle and The Cento (both with Red Hen Press). Theresa’s book Trans-Atlantic Connections: The Movement and New Formalism, will appear in Spring 2019 (also with Red Hen).