“Hey, that’s a bad word,”
my niece shouts.
She’s seven and smart
already a good reader,
but the car is moving fast,
and the sign passes in a blur.
I pretend I don’t hear
as I look out the window.
That’s not like me, she knows,
and I can tell that she can tell
that something’s up.
Something’s not right.

My brother parks the car.
“Hurry girls,” he says,
“there’s already a line.”
By now, everyone knows the drill,
even the little one, who’s only four.
The girls take off their sandals
and put on close-toed shoes.
No bare shoulders.
Not ever.

We stand in line
with other people’s families.
We smile and nod but never talk.
Our Ziploc bag is full of change,
dull and silver.
Our paperwork is all filled out
in blue or black ink,
one for each adult.

As the line inches forward,
the girls get antsy,
tired of being good,
tired of standing still.
They swing on the black-iron railings,
like gymnasts working the uneven parallel bars.
My brother doesn’t reprimand,
he knows it’s been a long drive.
Five hours since we left the house
before the morning light,
the turnpike dark and empty,
nothing but road.

When we enter the building,
and hand over our forms,
and take off our jackets,
and turn out our pockets
(even a scrunched up tissue
can get you sent back),
we sign our names in the register
and walk quickly to the back room,
the one with the big coffee tables
that can fit five chairs.

We watch as the figure
walks down the hill
and enters the antechamber.
We can’t see what happens
behind the big white door,
whether they make her
pull down her pants and squat,
whether they pat her down, humiliated,
to enter the visitor’s building,
where I sit with her daughters,
their eyes shining,
waiting for Mommy.