Iowa<\/p>\n
Drove out of the parking lot,
\nopened the door of my yellow Camaro, threw up,
\nand drove on. Not sure I was the one
\nwho should have been driving. Three women<\/p>\n
out for a boozy lunch. This must have been before Mom said,
\nI\u2019m not watching the kids if you\u2019re going out drinking.<\/p>\n
Someone brought up Iowa, that Freddie and Valjean,
\nwere visiting her parent\u2019s farm there.
\nOn a whim, we picked up babies, packed extra diapers,
\nand took off.<\/p>\n
At night, left your brother and Valjean\u2019s little girl
\nwith Freddie. Four women and a baby in a stroller.
\nWe took you to town, to places you didn\u2019t belong.
\nValjean\u2019s mom told me what a good mother I was.<\/p>\n
In daylight, you sat in a box under a tree, giggled
\nand grabbed leaves by the handful. Your brother ran.
\nYou guys loved that farm, the farm Valjean escaped.
\nPoor Valjean. Her mother doted on tiny, graceful you, <\/p>\n
not the big-boned grandbaby all the way from New Jersey.
\nI didn\u2019t understand then about family politics,
\nabout Freddie, the nurturer, who just happened to be
\na dope dealer, about disappointment,<\/p>\n
or about the changes I had to make in myself
\nto be a proper mother.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Iowa Drove out of the parking lot, opened the door of my yellow Camaro, threw up, and drove on. Not sure I was the one who should have been driving. Three women out for a boozy lunch. This must have been before Mom said, I\u2019m…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":665,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/665"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20488"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20524,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20488\/revisions\/20524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}