Still in the dirty green apron from Joann Fabric

with her plastic name tag and big pockets,

tonight, she’ll trudge up 24th Street,

swinging a plastic bag from Tag’s Teriyaki.

Her impressive collection of doo-dad key rings will jingle

on her backpack, filled with twenty pounds of textbooks

she schleps between classes because seniors are cool and

don’t need no stinkin’ lockers.

Sweetheart, am I bothering you?

She can’t see the Cascades from the apartment

while she’s sitting on a tiny island of carpet

surrounded by mountains of dirty clothes,

outcroppings of motley worn flip-flops, and

pots and plates with boulders of crusted food.

She’ll be blithely IM’ing intimate strangers

when my phone call interrupts,

three times zones away,

Sweetheart, am I bothering you?

Her hi, as a volley to my chirpy hi, sweetie sails smoothly

across the net and I think yay, everything’s fine

until she says fine, and I know it’s another night

when my daughter is a travel agent for guilt trips.

(My frequent flyer miles could get me to Borneo.)

I’m so lonely she says, and my heart almost cracks until

I realize her attention is focused on earning

Neopoints to spend Neocash on her Neopets.

Sweetheart, am I bothering you?

Are you enjoying the classes I ask, and she shrugs

– the silence tells me she has.

I have to do everything myself she says, and my heart almost cracks:

does it matter that she is probably not doing much of anything?

I ask her do you wish you hadn’t stayed there for your senior year but

I don’t tell her I love my new job, which is 2,800 miles away from her senior year.

We’ll live with the fall-out of our choices,

sweeping dried tears under the rug,

dancing our lives apart until we’re together again.