Broken Lines

by Judith Grey

The door code 1-2-3 releases the lock
of memory care hall. I tell it to Dad
every time before I leave when he asks
if he’s been put in jail. As I pull on my coat
he says, Where you going? I’m ready, gal.
Just put me in your suitcase.

So I’m not thinking much about the weather
as I leave, weather sneaking up on me
from easy rain to no-joke ice and sleet.
Splatters of salt and slush gum up the wipers;
stick like plaque and narrow the smeary view
to tail light pin pricks vanishing ahead.

Snow blows and writhes in snake skin patterns
that whip across the highway like forgetting
and leave me drifting over broken lines
ahead of deadline-crazy eighteen wheeler,
roaring past in a game of chicken.
I am riding blind with hazards flashing.

The road I thought I had by rote is there
and gone, an unexpected River Lethe
erasing what I knew as my way back.
How hard can this be? Take the interstate,
tick off the miles between my dad and home,
on the road again, like the song he sang

as long as he could go.
It’s hard enough
when an old familiar road
is suddenly strange,
and the light ahead fades out
disappears.