My Mother in the Maritimes

By Michael Mintrom

There she is, caught in a photograph
taken on Cape Breton Island
as we drove along the Cabot Trail.

Neither of us had been there before.
We visited potters, stopped for lunch.
Time passed. It didn’t matter.

Our destination was Prince Edward Island,
the Anne of Green Gables Museum.
But looking back, the trip was a device,

two lives entwined, a chance to talk.
I remember how she chuckled at place names,
checked histories, sent postcards home.

It’s eerie, her standing beside the road.
Behind her, a harbor, a boat shed,
sharp-edged hills pressed by the sky.

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Michael Mintrom is a professor and poet who writes because, as C.D. Wright said, “Poetry is a necessity of life.”