Patricia Wallace Jones

NOT HOW YOU DRIVE

Mother pushed me to pause,
cock my head, take a practice swing,
flex my hands to relax
and to never ever look up,
always look out.

She could beat my long drive
most days with her wedge,
her short game lethal
from fifty yards out.

She taught finesse, how to arrive,
putt and win, earn a low handicap,
her left leg missing.

Patricia Wallace Jones is a retired disability rights advocate who worked all her adult life for rights she fears we are losing daily. Daughter of a mother with a physical disability and mother of a son who lived a full and included life with intractable seizures, cognitive and psychiatric disabilities, she began writing poetry after retiring.