Pine Tree Motel : Modesto, California, 1963
My father has opened the Venetian blinds
and I see Southern Pacific freight cars
flicker past, mud-colored blotches
fading in and out of the streetlight.
He stands at the window
in his boxer shorts and tank t-shirt.
My mother sleeps in one bed,
the sheets twisted around her legs.
My sister and I curl up in another bed,
my brother in a cot.
We are sticky with the heat,
and the room smells of socks.
My father has brought us, our baggage,
our stuffed bears and rabbits,
to this one small room,
a stopover on the way to Yosemite,
and now he cannot sleep.
My father's eyes follow the train tracks north.
The dark ghosts of cars rattle past:
gondolas of tomatoes and sugar beets, cattle cars,
flatcars carrying new Fords and Chevys.
The last car passes. I feel the walls shake.
My father stands at the window and I see
his face in silhouette against the yellow streetlight,
frowning. I hear the rattle of the train in the distance.
When I hear nothing but the sound of my brother
wheezing, my father is still standing at the window,
his back toward us, and I fall asleep.
Kathy Abelson