THANK YOU

I love the parents waiting for their children at the bus, especially the ones who wait alone,

their hats pulled down, kicking out their limbs like cranes,

one mother in a defiantly red skirt. She shifts her weight, she bends her waist.

Her day packed and pressed aside, she gives room to this waiting. 

Remember coming late from practice, Mom sitting with the car shut off to save gas? 

January seeping in, she kneads a cold and aching foot, returns it to her boot.

Her eyes are fixed on your school door, on the forms that you will take.  Any moment now,

you will emerge.

Emily K. Bright received her MFA from the University of Minnesota in May. Her chapbook Glances Back was published by Pudding House Press in 2007, and individual poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The North American Review, The Crab Orchard Review, and the anthology Imagine Peace.