When the doctor confirmed you had cancer for the first time,

mom and I were driving the two hours home from Lincoln.

I asked her to pull over to the side of the road.

The windshield wipers could hardly keep up with the rain

and each word that left her mouth fell limp in the air.

When you called last week to tell me it had returned,

I could hear mom’s voice in my own

and I opened my bedroom window to the

negative temperatures of winter to keep

my words from pooling themselves around my feet.