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dear, I’m so glad you called!”
    She does know me! And she sounds so sane.
    But then she says, “The sky’s green here today…
    Is it green there, too?”
    My hope plummets like a bird pierced by an arrow.
    â€œUh…no, Mom…it’s just the usual blue…”
    I can hear Dr. Hack in the background.
    I’d know that loathsome chuckle of his anywhere.
    â€œMom,” I say, “let me talk to the doctor.”
    â€œHey, Dr. Handsome,”
    she calls over to him.
    â€œMy daughter wants to talk to you.”
    â€œMyra darling,” I hear him coo,
    â€œflattery will get you everywhere…”
    Then he tells her he’ll take my call in the hall.
    And when he says hello, I cut right to the chase:
    â€œWhen are you going to wean her off the steroids?”
    â€œActually,” he says, “we began last week.”
    â€œBut let me guess,” I say. “The bad news
    is that she’s still psychotic?”
    â€œYes,” he says,
    â€œbut the good news
    is that she’s so psychotic
    she doesn’t even know it!”
    And when he starts chuckling
    at his own foul little joke,
    I tell him I’ve got another call
    coming in.
    Then I hang up
    and let fly a stream of curses so scary
    that Secret leaps off my lap
    and streaks out of the room.

I JUST WEIGHED MYSELF
    And discovered,
    to my horror,
    that I’ve gained five pounds.
    The day of my daughter’s departure
    has been bearing down on me
    like a bullet train
    and I’ve been stuffing my face
    to try to quell the emptiness
    growing in my gut.
    I take a look at my belly in the mirror—
    it’s so vast I could almost pass
    for pregnant.
    The irony of this
    does not
    escape me.
    I run my hands over my mountainous midriff
    and find myself drifting back
    to the day before Samantha was born…
    I remember how I savored the flutter
    of her Ginger-Rogersy feet
    waltzing away inside of me
    and thought about
    where they might carry her
    one day;
    how I gazed down
    at the opalescent orb
    that barely contained her,
    picturing her fully grown,
    heading off to college
    without so much as a backward glance,
    and whispered,
    â€œHow can you leave me,
    after all I’m going to do for you?”

AND I’LL CRY IF I WANT TO
    Watching Samantha
    pack up her things for college,
    the mournful call of Jane’s trumpet
    wafting in through the window,
    I find myself
    feeling as though
    I was there when they came
    to set up the tent and the dance floor,
    there when they
    brought in the heat lamps,
    there when they
    delivered the tables and chairs,
    the linens and china,
    the silverware and champagne flutes…
    And now
    I’m here,
    watching them pick it all up again
    and load it back onto the truck.
    But, somehow—
    I blinked
    and missed
    the party.

THE NIGHT BEFORE SAMANTHA LEAVES
    Pinkie’s yapping wakes me at 2 a.m.
    I don’t remember my dream,
    but it’s left me feeling panicky.
    I can’t fall back to sleep.
    So I throw on some clothes
    and hop onto my Schwinn.
    Ten minutes later,
    I find myself wandering though the park
    where Sam and I played when she was small.
    There’s an ugly hodgepodge of rope bridges
    where the stately metal jungle gym
    once stood.
    And the seesaw Samantha loved to ride
    has been replaced by some kind of weird
    sproinging Plexiglas contraption.
    There’s still a swing set,
    but it’s in the wrong spot.
    And the wooden seats are plastic now.
    The tire swing’s gone.
    The silver slide’s gone.
    The monkey bars are gone.
    Even my little girl’s favorite—the creaky old
    mother-powered merry-go-round—
    has vanished.
    And so has
    my little
    girl.

ALICE DROVE US TO THE AIRPORT AT NOON
    She gave Samantha
    a fierce hug good-bye and promised us
    she’d take brilliant care of Secret.
    Now I’m on the plane,
    tucked into the middle seat
    between Michael, who’s sketching,
    and Samantha,
    who’s