she insisted we roll the car windows down
while the a/c was cranking
and she just kept it cranking

in her mid 90s silvery Saturn sedan,
second-hand from her parents,
three little boys crammed in the back seat
a baby girl not yet in her belly,
as we drove down the Kennedy, then the Dan Ryan, heading to the Skyway
for our weekly day-trip
to the southwest Michigan coast

our cooler stuffed with tarragon chicken salad sandwiches for us, fried chicken drumsticks for them, at least two pounds of black cherries, pickles, diet cokes, limes, and capri-suns — the box of white cheddar cheez-its hardly ever made it all the way to the Warren Dunes on the ride from Chicago

for the Lake, the beach, the inlet hike to the clay pit,
the Dune climb, always hoping for some gentle, yellow-flag waves, and the long, eastern time-zone Sun’set over platinum blue water

perplexed, delighted by this novelness, by her unconvention:

a/c on our skin — and summer air blowing in our hair?

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