Looking for Suzanne

Tricia Walker

Bob is a trucker out of Phoenix
He drives I-40 once a week at least
Lately when he’s heading out toward Tennessee
He thinks about the life he left back east
She was two years old the Christmas eve they left him
For reasons he didn’t fully understand
But now her memory’s pulling like a magnet
So last week he started looking for Suzanne

He remembers that her eyes are blue or are they green
After twenty years go by, it’s hard to say
And then his sister Peggy sent a photograph
Taken down in Texas just last May
He swears she looks a whole lot like her mother
The way that grown-up daughters often can
So he tapes her picture square upon his dashboard
Picks up another load and goes looking for Suzanne

When there are pieces of our lives left unattended
Then the scars from broken hearts go unmended
Until the feelings we’d forgotten overtake us like a flood
That’s how it always is with flesh and blood
(and) that’s how it has to be with flesh and blood

Today he stops his run just east of Nashville
Puts a quarter from his pocket in a phone
He dials the number information gave him
And then says a prayer that she will be at home
After several rings, someone finally answers
His heart is in his throat, sweat’s in his hands
He says I wonder can you help me I’m twenty years too late
But my name is Bob and I’m looking for Suzanne

Minutes pass, he hangs up the receiver
A little less a father, more a man
And then he walks down to the corner where he’ll meet her
And spends one last moment looking for Suzanne