Otherwise

Otherwise

Paul J. Willis

I don’t think I’m going to make it.
So said my mother-in-law to her rehab nurse
when they took her back to the hospital.

No need to talk like that, said the nurse,
but then she called my wife and told her,
You should come. So today she is driving

seven hours across the desert for the third time
this month, worried that our aging Prius
will leave her stranded miles from the nearest town.

It’s fine, I told her. The Prius will do just fine.
But I watched her leave in a hard rain
and heard the wind say otherwise.

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Paul J. Willis
Poet & Professor

Paul is newly-retired from his position as Professor of English at Westmount College in Santa Barbara, California. His newest poetry collection is Somewhere To Follow (2021, Slant).

Photography by Anton Malanin