Traveling Together

I was holding your hand in the store that summer we snuck
out of town before dawn, heading home, when you slipped
and I stopped you from falling on your back, from suffering

the indifference of the world. Not to jinx how you look
back on things, but years later I keep reliving what didn't
happen, everything ruined and miserable for hours.

It's the bird flying from the top of the car that made
me think we’d used up our luck. The bird, as you called it,
was the wallet I’d left on the roof. If you hadn't spoken

from your car seat, if I hadn't pictured credit cards fanned
in the road like a magician's offer to pick just one, we'd never
have rescued vacation from the four-lane in front of QFC.

Passing random streets near the freeway, it was neon
that caused you to turn your head, call the sleep-
walking bear to mind, tell me, Dad, turn around.

Turning 21, you chose a road trip with your father. Ten hours
in the car, you didn't put your headphones in till you’d texted
your mom how close we were and fell asleep against the window.

I’m doing what fathers naturally do, grieving this pilgrimage
before it’s over, the hush before the great divide. It is always
this. Now we begin. Now we have no one to show us the way.