Synkroniciti is delighted to welcome back poet Lorraine Jeffery of Utah, previously featured in our Curiosity and Family issues, with two poems about personal and communal expectations that shape our lives.
“In Your Lane” is one of our Expectations poetry finalists. Many Americans feel disconnected from the larger communities in which we live during this time of social upheaval, and yet there are bonds and expectations that still hold, however tenuous. Except for the racers in our communities who love to speed around us, and the occasional flares of road rage and flagrant disregard for safety, our roadways generally remain safer than extended family gatherings or political discourse.
Repetition mirrors the daily patterns that keep us in our lane:
“You trust that the man you/ don’t know will stay in his lane./ That the woman will signal./ That the stranger will not/ slam on his brakes”
Lorraine makes us think about how deep our differences go and whether our aggression is lessened by anonymity. Will there come a day when roadway civility breaks down as well? Is this change already underway?
In Unexpected?, she turns to the rodeo, where danger is not anomaly but inevitability. The poem’s rich imagery fuses myth and grit.
“I am Icarus in a/ cowboy hat/ falling from the sky/ with lungs like moths/ drumming against a barn door/ beating back night.”
The rodeo becomes a metaphor for life’s sudden turns, where the next emergency is always waiting just beyond the arena gate.
Together, these poems remind us that expectation is both tether and test: binding us to one another while exposing the fragility of those bonds. Whether on the highway or in the rodeo ring, Lorraine illuminates the precarious balance between trust and inevitability, writing with clarity and compassion that makes us think about the faith we place in everyday rituals and our defiance of mortality.
Lorraine Jeffery earned a master’s degree and managed public libraries for twenty years but learned more about life from raising her ten children (eight adopted, two bio) than in any university class. She has won numerous prizes in national and state contests and published over 250 poems in various journals including Naugatuck River, Ibbetson Street, Clockhouse, Front Range, Calliope and Last Stanza. She has also published one poetry book and three chapbooks with Kelsay Books. There is an old adage that states that with age comes wisdom but she contends that sometimes age shows up all by itself.