On Meeting a Son at an Intersection Where He Had the Right-of-way

Jan Seale

April 30, 2022

Yes, it was his grandfather’s car left over from a death. 

And there were rules. I had to admit he was there 

five seconds ahead. He knew too and waved merrily

as he pulled out like his final rush from my body, 

a bit of dizziness taking my head. Recovering,

I gave a timid honk, his back disappearing to my left,

saying that to meet like this, wedged as a right triangle,

three generations bowing to a minor traffic law and

holding a conference  at the corner of Eighth and Vine,

was a curtsy in the long day of family dancing.

Jan Seale lives in South Texas, a place of anomalies. As you might guess, she drinks mesquite bean coffee. She is the 2012 Texas Poet Laureate. Her latest book is Particulars: poems of smallness.