You Gave Me Tomorrow Poem by Seamus O' Brian

I don't remember if I hugged you
before I shoe-horned that old suitcase
(I'm sure that it was broken,
because I do remember twine)
into the trunk of your old Hornet
('73, I think, but shining
in a few new coats of paint
belying a transmission
that would bail this side of far enough)
and we set off rather pensively
with precisely rationed small talk
and a bin of tin-foiled sandwiches
enough of both to last until
we reached Miami where my future lay
wrapped up like a newspaper
on the porchstep of tomorrow.

I don't remember if you cried
I don't remember if I held your hand
As the miles of my childhood
Ticked away beneath that shiny hood,
But I could see the pain of raising me
The weight of raising all of us
On just this side of not enough
Chiseled in those lines beside your eyes,
That smile that could almost hide
a thousand empty, lonely nights,
(but not quite)
Concealed the grim, foreboding future
With no promises of something better
Than the banquet of our broken dreams
We gathered ‘round each day.
But those calloused hands,
Those chiseled eyes, those
Grim, determined smiles
With guts and prayers you
Pulled someday through all
The fissured cracks of everyday
Until your kids could stand,
Firm upon their own two feet
In gently used, thrift-store shoes
With tears that burned on hopeful cheeks
And say, 'It's o.k, Mom, I'll take it from here,
But I wouldn't be here, without you.'

I don't remember that I hugged you
When you pulled away and left me
On the front porch of tomorrow,
But I sure as hell remember
That I did, and always will, love you.