“Elegy for my Mother’s Mind” by Laura Van Prooyen

A poem by alum Laura Van Prooyen (poetry, ’10) appears at Prairie Schooner:

When I steady your step on the stairs, you ask not once but twice
where we’re going—to the car, to the store, Mom, remember?

You laugh and say you thought we’d be walking and we are,
right into the part of your brain where you’ll lose me, lose

the child who picked all 43 tulips you waited a solid Chicago winter
to watch bloom. Lose the girl who pedaled her Schwinn

up and back the U-shaped driveway while you fried bacon
behind the evergreens in an electric pan so the house wouldn’t smell.

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