Parked by Sonia Nicholson
It won’t take long, he says. Slips his lean frame out the door. While he’s hunched, hood pulled up, I forget. I see it now in the parking lot. Inside a boy, outside a man. I’ll wait here, I respond. But he’s gone. Never a question of my joining him. Fine. So much I could do in this pod of metal, leather. Glass. I itemize. Emails. Another paragraph or two of my novel. Grocery list: peanut butter, laundry soap. Every minute must be counted. Accounted for. But I lean my head back. A strange sensation, to rest. A Mercedes exits to join the afternoon commute. I hit the lock. Lock the rest out. There is space here. Above. Below. Before. Rock rises beyond the headlights, lifting gnarled Garry Oaks — arthritic fingers against February sky. I follow them down to mossy carpet. Underneath, new sword ferns hang like chartreuse bunting. Reach down to parents growing in the gap between blacktop and outcrop. One, two. Another bare tree, closer. A variety I might recognize with leaves. Movement in the naked branches reveals black, brown, white. A Spotted Towhee. There’s an app for that. Probably for trees, too. A knock at the window. The boy-man, hood down. I unlock the door. Sorry, it was busy, he says. I had to wait. Busy, always. I itemize. Wonder if all this will be here next time. And how much is already lost.
“‘Parked’ is exactly what it appears to be on the surface: a poem I wrote in my car while waiting for my son to finish an appointment. Maybe it was due to my pensive mood at the time, but I felt like there was so much to observe in the small details around me. The lit magazines I’ve submitted it to didn’t appreciate the reflections on both nature and the passage of time. Maybe I tried to tackle too many subjects here. This piece also doesn’t quite know what genre it is. In the end, I reluctantly shelved it.”
Sonia Nicholson’s work has appeared in publications including Inspirelle, Literary Heist, Pinhole Poetry, Heimat Review, and Rivanna Review. Her writing regularly explores themes of identity, family, and place. A first-generation Canadian who grew up in a Portuguese immigrant household, she was born and raised in Osoyoos, British Columbia. Sonia holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in French and Spanish from the University of Victoria, and continues to call Victoria home. Her debut novel, Provenance Unknown, was published in 2023 by Sands Press. She has signed a contract with Okanagan Publishing House to publish A Year of Summer, her second novel.