Bad Daughter

It’s my own mother

I think of when

in the hot car it

hurts me to watch

my painstaking girl

return from the

water ice kiosk

balancing three lemon

ices in a four-hole

tray, plastic spoons

fanned in her fist, wad

of napkins wedged

between the ices,

when a gust makes

the napkins riffle then

gamboling lift off,

like and unlike

ones that went before,

fair girls in festival

dresses dancing

up the street, leaving

her at the curb

in flipflops and sweatshorts

looking through the car window

to see if I’m mad.