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.