Muted gold lord of breakdowns and beginnings,

I never knew what
she was running from,

but momma’s hands were always
reaching for the steering wheel.

At 8, my first beginning
is a broken marriage,

the first ending a midnight
odyssey up I-5 to the Bay.

My sisters lay in the back seat, folded over
each other like the clothes in our trunk.

Tobunga sits in my passenger seat lap,
ever-squawking song of our misery.

I hated that bird, but it was the only one left
after my twin gave the others to the suburban sky.

Momma pinches me the whole way,
her nails sharp as canines.

She is angry because she thinks
I’m giving bad mapquest directions,

but Momma is as good at driving
as I am at biting my tongue.

Auntie makes a home for us in Antioch,
but it is never long before Momma boils over.

Months later, we spill onto the street
as empty as we arrived.

Cops take my sisters, and momma’s hands go searching,
first for the steering wheel, then another man.

One morning, she rushes my twin and me
out of his apartment, late for school.

No one tells her about the cops that will come for us,
how our absence will grip her like a ghost.

The Cadillac fades down the hill, my mother’s golden
chariot. The last thing left to hold her.