Packed Suitcase (prose poem)

She's in the copy room at the middle school, waiting for her turn at the copier. This reminds her. Reminds her of years ago, packing a suitcase and waiting for her and Vinnie's daughter to be born. She packed the going-home outfit for their soon-to-be little one, and her jeans, the ones that were loose but not maternity jeans, for her own going home.

And now, amid the chatter of the teachers, and the burr of the copy machines, she waits in her navy blue dress and her sensible flats. She's thinking about her 95-year-old mother in Maine. Her mother is dying. She's in palliative care at the nursing home. This daughter of hers, now nearing her own retirement, waits for her mother to die. She rues the distance and the interstates between them. But the decision to move to Connecticut, where she and her husband found jobs and milder weather, happened decades ago.

Once again, she's packed a suitcase. This time it was tough to know how. Will her visit be to spend time, or to attend her mother's funeral? What to fold and pack? What to leave hanging? And so she waits for another going home.