That night the car became a weapon
hardened with front sight, slide stop
and disassembly lever. Polymers.
Carbon fiber. Steel alloy.
We spoke of how one month
to the day I earned my license
I rolled a truck—my lifespan circling
the steering wheel. We tapped into
reverse psychology. Every mention of ticket
and crash was code for “Break a leg.”
You told me to stop tapping my feet,
to close my eyes, to get the instructor
to talk about his children.
I slid down in the backseat
and watched for just the red and green
at intersections. What was the teacher’s name
again? Why did he ask me to writhe
in silence? Our streets turned into Seoul,
then Tehran, and headed for Sao Paulo.
I grimaced at the floor, triple-checked
the seatbelt. Sirens blared
from two towns away. The pitch
circled above and behind us.
Streetlamps cast more shadows
than light. Every other business seemed
as if it had been shuttered for years
and behind them strands and strands
of drooping electrical lines and one-way roads
lined with dumpsters and potholes. Now
those roads were no longer in some
dim future. The instructor said
to turn. The blinker warned us
like a prophet.