Day 1: HOW I GOT HERE

PROMPT: HOW DID YOU GET HERE?

MY MOTHER WAS A BOAT

My mother was a boat.
I floated in her.
When she sailed across the corner at Broad Street and Vine
in northern Philadelphia near Temple University
on July 1, 1952,
a bent woman stopped her
in the middle of the intersection and said,
“You’re going to have an angel.”

I was born on July 16.