We’re packed now and already sweaty
from the clomp of second-story steps
and a poor mama’s haul
of begged and borrowed camping gear;
Tent uncouth as a corpse
And the cooler, more of a wheeled warmish,
contents counted out and already sweaty
Do you think we forgot anything?
The ketchup, the hotdogs,
the elephant in the room?
Do you think we forgot
the family we were then?
But not now;
not in the jeep
heading northbound across the bridge.

We’re packed now and already sweaty
from slipping that last $9 into the coffee can
and a poor mama off-loading
roadside rack-wood into the final foot space
Passenger pockets carved from the jumble
and the kids squeezed in like sticky mallows
knees to ears
Do you think we forgot anything?
The flashlights, the matches,
the sight of him in the yard
as we drove away?
Do you think we forgot
the used-to-be,
other one of us?
Noticeably absent
for our first foray as three
on this eight miles of juttering washboard
headed southbound down The Garden.

We’re packed now and already sweaty
From the windstop of minimalism thwarted
Floorboard to sunroof
Where they’ve spilled out the top
unbelted and belting Truth Hurts
to the unwind of peninsula pines
And maybe not noticing
a poor mama’s mask of cheer
masking fear and already sweaty
from the planning, the packing,
the loading and also,
the loaded.
Do you think we forgot anything?
The rainfly, the poles,
the home we take with us?
Not the upsized tent for a downsized us.
And no, not that one either,
the one we left south of the bridge
across that decisive stretch of strait.

Monique Bova lives with her family in a cottage on the edge of the Pigeon River State Forest in Northern Michigan, where the trout streams, swamp bottoms, and white pine thickets provide most of her rejuvenation and inspiration. She has previously been published in the 8th and 9th editions of the Walloon Writer’s Review.