Non-Negotiable Securities by Valerie MacEwan


Traveling with member-supported-public-radio friends
listen to Mountain Stage made possible by listeners like me,
driving down dark highways on the road to vehicular suicide.
Time past I was the passenger and someone else drove,
dreaming of a free-fall at sixty miles an hour,
careening out of a trance onto the median
of trees, grass, gravel, steel signs and cigarette butts.
But I almost opened the door in June,
So for me, I can only drive.

Wheel-grasping, lumbar-supported, you reach that place,
the one that waits for your attendance and responsibility.
Propelled by the inevitability of your momentum
and from your destiny comes a future, controlled,
I hold myself back and refrain from opening the car door...
the one that sends me flying onto the median
of trees, grass, gravel, steel signs and cigarette butts.
Steel-belted safety on radial tires,
You're sheltered because I drive.

Copyright © 2001 by Valerie MacEwan.

Valerie MacEwan has been published in the Asheville Poetry Review, Earth and Soul (NC Poetry Anthology), MindKites, and more...

She also edits and publishes The Dead Mule: School of Southern Literature.

Look up other works by Valerie MacEwan.

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