June 20, 2023I-95 Corridor
1.
This is where I was cited
for reckless driving
and my uncle quipped
95 is the route number,
not the speed limit.
2.
This is where I stopped
with an ex-boyfriend
on the last stretch from Miami
and a motel clerk asked
if we wanted the all night
or hourly rate.
3.
This is where my grad school
U-Haul broke down and I
waited for the wrecker
with a Swiss Army knife
flexed against my bare thigh.
4.
This is where I learned
all the lyrics to Dylan’s
“Subterranean Homesick Blues,”
rewinding the cassette
till it snapped in the deck.
5.
This is where I interviewed
for an adjunct teaching gig
that would cost me more
in tolls and gas than I’d earn.
6.
This is where thieves
took my Plymouth Breeze
on a joyride then dumped it
on the shoulder, my just-cashed
paycheck still in the console.
7.
This is where my husband
missed an exit for the symphony
and grazed a concrete pillar
beneath an underpass.
8.
This is where I ordered
my daughter vanilla ice cream
with extra maraschino cherries
after she lay corpse-still
for her first echocardiogram.
9.
This is where a tanker truck
caught fire, melting the highway’s
steel beams until an entire span
collapsed like a ruptured aorta.
10.
Corridor:
a long,
narrow
passage
between
rooms
or land.
Or time.
11.
They are still sifting through
the truck driver’s remains.
12.
I can never remember
if it’s steel oneself
or steal oneself. Am I
supposed to harden my feelings
or shove them under
my shirt like a shoplifter?
13.
In the show I’m watching,
one corridor leads
to another, rough cut
after rough cut of white walls
in a workplace maze.
14.
The day of the symphony,
we abandoned our SUV
on the off-ramp and ran
four blocks to the concert hall,
plunking into plush seats
just in time for da da da dum.
15.
Commute, hospital, concert,
wedding, commute, bar mitzvah,
commute, funeral, commute.
16.
Lately I need to sit
closer to the throat
of a bass trombone
or purring cat to feel
a stirring in my pulse.
17.
My uncle is gone now,
a stroke two days
before Christmas.
18.
For years I replayed
that last conversation
in my ex’s red Jetta,
his hands trying to bend
the steering wheel,
his eyes swollen.
19.
What’s the difference
between carefree
and careless?
20.
I’m not sure
I want to know.
21.
So many bodies
and bodies in motion.
22.
I can’t steal myself.
I’m already stolen.
from Poets Respond