road trip

you take a road trip
with your parents.
they are both in their
eighties. so it's
a long ride to Philadelphia
where their parents
are buried, and where
they grew up and went
to school a thousand
years ago in south philly.
you suggest,
after a hundred miles
or so and three stops
for coffee and the bathroom,
singing as your father
drives his chevy impala,
but he cant remember
the words to any songs
and begins to make them
up. fly me to the moon
becomes, fly me to that
white globe in the sky.
after about three attempts
at Sinatra and dean martin's
mambo italiano, your
mother puts her hands
over her ears and screams
I have to pee again. now.
I have to pee now. I
may have peed a little
when you hit that last
bump. why are there so
many bumps, it seems like
you are purposely trying
to hit them. which makes
your father shake his
head and say something
in Italian that you don't
understand. after stopping
and getting back into
the car, you suggest
playing the license
plate game, but they don't
want to. your father
keeps asking you if
the traffic lights
are red or green
as he speeds through them,
and your mother says
she has a headache on
account of the fumes
from the trucks going
by twice as fast as we
are. it's a long trip.
but nobody dies and
everyone is happy in a
strange blissful way.