And maybe work for the Victor Jara Foundation.
I feel like a home-alone mother; all the lights
have gone out in the hall, and now I am
wearing your large black slippers, flip-flopping
into your empty bedroom, trying to imagine you
in your bed. I stare at the photos you send by messenger:
you on the top of the world, arms outstretched, eager.
Blue sky, white snow;  you by Lake Tararhua, beaming.
My heart soars like the birds in your bright blue skies.
My love glows like the sunrise over the lost city.
I sing along to Ella Fitzgerald, A tisket A tasket.
I have a son out in the big wide world.
A flip and a skip ago, you were dreaming in your basket.
She returns once more to his childhood. His ‘dreaming’ in his Moses basket has ‘come true’ in his early adult life. For the poet the time has passed in a ‘flip and a skip’, an echo of her ‘flip-flopping’ in his slippers, the pain and joy of motherhood encapsulated in one brief line.
Gap Year