Crash Course
By Liz Posen
When I realized my daughter
was going to college
really leaving
not like an extended sleepover
I worried to near panic
that I had not given her
essential life lessons
and embarked on a crash course.
“Was she aware of the danger of combining water and electricity?”
My daughter said she was glad I told her this
as she had been planning to throw
her hair dryer into the bathtub.
“How about not wearing billowing clothes near an open flame?”
“What flame, since you never taught me to cook?”
she replied, rolling her eyes.
“Well, did she know never to help move furniture
for a stranger with a van?”!
“Mom,” she said, “I saw that movie.”
Reluctantly I stopped then
recognizing defeat
seeing I was way too late
knowing, with sudden clarity and pain
that I could no longer protect her
and possibly never really did
hoping she would forgive me in time.
Liz Pozen is a poet, an artist, and a retired psychotherapist.
Poets with a connection to Martha’s Vineyard are encouraged to submit poems to curator Laura Roosevelt at ldroosevelt@gmail.com.
