Heartsick Poem by Wendy Vardaman

'Don't you ever,' I say, collecting
my 13-year-old from her Othello rehearsal, when
two hours late she doesn't turn
up, 'do that again.
Do you have any idea how a parent worries
when a child doesn't come home?' She's all apologies
and steady, clear-eyed replies
to my fighting-back-tears, heart-in-mouth cries
and shaking voice, swearing, to calm down
me, that in the future she will always phone
to say where she's gone and when I can expect her back.
It's all I can ask,
so I try to believe in the promise of a daughter
I can still picture in the heart-covered dress I stitched for her

at three. She wore it every day that I allowed,
and sometimes more, during the February she sat glued
to her desk with scissors, construction paper, glitter, markers, tape
and explained, arms spread wide, her plan to decorate the house, top
to bottom, for her favorite holiday, 'I'm going to cover this whole
place with Valentines. It's going to be so beautiful.'
So when the lady at the chocolate
counter offers me a seasonally-shaped
balloon, I hold out my hand without
a thought about whom I might
give it to—just smiling
like every other fool in love—attaching
the ribbon to my wrist as I leave,
wearing, so it can't get away from me, my heart on my sleeve.