DRIVE

March 27, 2009

I’m digging this new poem from The Writer’s Almanac:

No Matter How Far You Drive by Louis Jenkins

I sat between Mamma and Daddy.

My sister sat on Mamma’s lap.

Daddy drove. Fields, telephone poles….

I watched the sun go down.

“Never look straight at the sun,

it could ruin your eyes.”

No matter how far you drive

you can’t get to the sun.

I touched the pearly knob

of the gearshift lever

and felt the vibration in my fingers.

It made Daddy nervous.

‘Never mess around with that.

You could ruin the car,

cause an accident.”

It was dark, the sun gone to China.

Out there in the dark,

fourteen lights. I counted. Fourteen.

Rabbits ran in front of the car

from one black ditch to the other.

I didn’t know where we were.

I could see the red light on the dashboard and the light of Daddy’s Lucky Strike that broke into a million sparks behind us when he threw it out the window.

“No Matter How Far You Drive” by Louis Jenkins, from All Tangled Up with the Living. (c) Nineties Press, 1991. Reprinted with permission.

It reminds me of drives in the car with

my mother– cold mornings, on the way to school, her hands

in Isotoner gloves.

The crackle of her cigarette as she inhales.

My cheek on the chilly window.