With Six Grandsons Behind the Wheel by Sharon Waller Knutson

The call we fear
we're going to get comes
while we’re eating
popcorn and watching
television in the evening.

It’s our oldest son
who just turned fifty.
I hear sadness
in his voice
and clutch my cell
phone like a raft.

I gasp for air
as he speaks
of a car collision,
our second oldest
grandson in a coma
in an ICU, a machine
breathing for him.

I see the baby
with chubby cheeks
and curls turn into
a tall twenty-five-
year-old reciting
his vows in a suit
just three months ago.

My heart is broken,
I say as my son
and his father go silent.
I wish I could
change places with him.
But all I can do is wait.

On his fifth day in the ICU,
we get another call.
This time his mother
shouts, He’s breathing
on his own and opened
one eye and said,
What’s up Mama?



Sharon Waller Knutson has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She has published 12 books of poetry, including the most recent, The Leading Ladies of My Life (Cyberwit 2023) and its sequel, My Grandfather is a Cowboy (Cyberwit 2024.) She has published 1,000 poems in more than 60 publications. She is the editor of Storyteller Poetry Review and lives in Arizona.