Mothers and Daughters

Mid-level marketing managers
Frequented strip-mall chapels
And lunchtime nail-salons
Before returning to whatever
Mid-level marketing managers do
On Thursday afternoons.

The serpentine mountain road above
Seemed just as godless,
And nobody at all heard in entirety
The malignant sounds of glass and steel
Rupturing over boulders.

On the day the minivan rained
Down Cascade canyon,
We ignored algebra and traded rumors
Over the 6th grade deskscape.

Some years later we laughed,
At first,
As we picked bits of their epitaph
From in between boulders:
Unbroken women’s glasses,
A dollar bill, a romance novel,
Engine parts of all sorts, even a baby stroller;
A coffee mug half buried in scree,
And a license plate from the
Forget-Me-Not state.