My mom, laughing,
said that her epitaph will read
“She meant well.”
One night, long past bedtime,
they drove
their two small daughters to Callahan’s,
on a hot dog adventure
for no reason
but to show us streetlights
flashing past the car windows
against a navy sky.
For no reason
but to cradle their nightgowned girls
in the small bright joy of anticipation,
and in the quiet dusky glow
of that small moving space
held fast between four doors
and four people.
Annie Kurzweg is New York born, New Jersey raised, and moved to Pittsburgh in 1988 to work on a BFA in art at CMU. After much law school (a JD from Pitt and an LLM from Penn), she worked as a lawyer and law professor, and now as a judicial clerk. She lives with her husband and three children in Squirrel Hill and draws cartoons about them that she posts on Instagram under @anniegetyourgum