Driving Through
I know this scene: There's an engine
idling, without keys, just outside Mr. Nehi's
algebra class. I escape without notice,
past the frosted glass of the wood shop
and the ironclad lockers with their inscrutable hasps
that never shut clean. I know
the sweet hum of tires over asphalt,
green tunnels trickling sun,
proud elmfire before Dutch blight
vacuumed the corridors bare. And the rowdy kids
cluttering the curb, nappy heads bobbing,
squirrel blood streaking their sharpened sticks—
I know them, too. After all, this is the past
I'm driving through, and I know I'll end up
where I started, stiff-necked and dull-hearted,
cursing last night's red wine. So when
this girl, this woman-of-a-child
with her cheap hoops and barnyard breasts
snatches the door and flops onto the vinyl shouting
Let's ride!, I nod and head straight for
the police, although I can't quite recall
where the station is, law enforcement
not being part of my past.
Run me home first, she barks,
smiling, enjoying the bluff:
I need my good earrings.
I tell her we're almost there, which
we aren't, not by half, and how would I know
where she lives, anyway? We're both smiling
now; but only when we're good and lost,
traffic thinned to no more than
a mirage of flayed brick and scorched cement,
does she blurt out: You're lying.
True, I think; but lying is what I do best.
I turn toward her, meaning to confess
my wild affliction, my art. Instead
I hiss gibberish; she panics,
slams the door handle down and hurls
her ripe body into the street where
no one will ever remember seeing her
again.
What was that?
My husband bolts up from his pillow.
Just a dream, I stammer, head pounding
as I try to fall asleep again—
even though I knew that girl was lost
long before I went back to find her.
Rita Dove
