"Physical Therapy" by Erica Goss

Physical Therapy

With one hand she finds the lumps in my neck
that popped up like button mushrooms

the day my mother started packing after
my father kicked the garbage cans over.

I was eleven, my siblings nine and two.
We drove east for days, away from him

and that hot inland suburb where
every summer smog shrouded

the mountains, crossing a country
whose size I’d just begun to fathom,

through regions of the heart, I was barely
aware of. Comprehension loomed

on the horizon, unavoidable as puberty:
my father, arriving to take us back west;

my mother, weeping, stacking pots and pans
in the same boxes we’d used when we fled.

Under my therapist’s expert thumbs, the lumps
in my neck throb, pressure building, until they

flatten, releasing a delicious flood of amnesia.
But we both know the relief is temporary.

Like the puffballs hiding in the lawn, memories
wait for just the right moment to emerge, when

the correct balance of heat and moisture
balloons them from spores to fruiting bodies.

Even now, they gather strength. My
therapist stretches her hands, ready.

Photo Credit: Staff