My Son's Guitar Class

is tucked above a carpet store on a busy street with no parking so that I come in panting

with the smell of traffic in my clothes, tight-necked from the argument in the car because this boy won’t be hurried.

But, settled on a bench in the back, I watch him bend to his patterning. Soon the walls disappear into feathered strummings

that eddy around my ankles, pile gauzy in corners like cottonwood. I wish I could tuck a gentle tendril against my wrist

to pull from my sleeve and wave, a white flag, whenever I feel my jaw clench at this boy. He arches his neck

over the trailing crochet of music, gazing off at something beyond us both.