Hugging You Goodbye

Hugging you goodbye

And watching you drift away,

Waving from the backseat of a

            Blue Butterfly Mini-van,

I know how a mother must feel,

Sending her daughter off to the

            Real world—

The real world beyond that

            Bubble,

            As we so lovingly—

            Teasingly—

            Dubbed it.

 

As you drive off,

As you pop the

Seal of the sparkling bubble,

As you drive past those

Golden gates,

Silvery bubble drops still

Slipping down the van windows,

I weep inside,

Racked by an unstoppable shiver:

A year is too long to wait to see you again.

 

In a year,

You might have grown up too fast,

And that—

That—

Is what I fear.

For your sake,

I wish childhood could last.

 

But I must settle for

This waving:

My hand back and forth like windshield wipers,

Keeping my tears at bay,

All I can do as I

            Snatch one last smile from your face, pressed against the glass:

One more smile to last

All year,

Until you come back to me,

Back to here.