Road Trip to Texas

At the roadside motel our father, not yet thirty,
steered the old white Rambler toward the neon pink
Vacancy sign. My brother and I struggled to stay 

awake in a backseat free of seatbelts, where we’d
worn ourselves out from hours of bouncing
around like tumbleweeds. Sometimes Dad drove 

all night on our five-day trip to El Paso, but he
must have been dog-tired enough to spend money
on a motel. I remember how it felt to be scooped

up and carried by my father through that dark
parking lot so many miles from home, my mother
following with my brother asleep on her shoulder.  

Half-asleep myself, I could hear big rigs rushing
by, the chunks of ice dropping in somebody’s
bucket, the low hum of that neon sign. But I felt 

safe in my father’s arms as our road-weary family
made our way to that motel office and at last,
to our beds. And to wake beside the people I loved 

with sunlight pouring like lemonade on the worn
carpet, the promise of a brief dip in the swimming
pool I could see from our window, was better

than Christmas. I had never seen water so blue
nor a day as clear and bright. Even now, with my
parents and brother all gone, my hair more 

gray than brown, I can still feel my body being
carried, imagine how light I must have been
before drinking from this cup of sorrows.