Dust Storms

Your elders gloat like lilly pads
on a pond
under sunscreen and broad hats

thousands of miles from their 
grown children.

Then the call comes:
“your mother, she fell”;
"your father, has a spot, lump, cough.”

All this is an unexpected thunder storm 
carpeting your sun.

You don’t know it yet, but you’ve 
just been drafted into the minor leagues
playing for a team plagued by dust storms.

B.F.M.