Backseat Driver’s Test

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.