Running Late
By Rob Neuteboom

Quarter of ten, Grandma calls from the gate.
Fence mounted lights blink incandescently to cast
bobbing reflections on the community pool.
Pebbled cement massages and scraps my bare feet
as I quickly overtake her past pine perfumed bushes
and silent houses, momentum propelling me far ahead.

With the sun gone, I shiver as water streams from wet trunks
weeping beneath a tightly wrapped beach towel.
Not once do I stop to call for her or wait.
I’m too young to understand that time
is a dark horseman with a cape of night chasing, chasing,
and not a murky pool that must be waded through till morning.

The front door is locked, so I shout, “Grandma!”
A voice from the night whispers, “Patience. Give an old woman some time.”
Moments thirsty mosquitoes: prickly on moist itchy skin.

Rob Neuteboom is a resident of Fargo, North Dakota, where he teaches Composition, Literature, and Creative Writing courses at Rasmussen College.  His work has appeared in Prick of the Spindle, Red Weather, The Houston Literary Review, the South Dakota Review, and is forthcoming in Love Child.  He holds an MA in English from the University of South Dakota and an MFA in Creative Writing from Minnesota State University - Moorhead.

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