Driving without Radio
One minute you’re sipping coffee at the stoplight,
and the next you find yourself six miles
down the road, wondering how you got there,
just two exits before the French bakery
and your favorite weekday breakfast taco stand.
Or while pondering the life of mud,
you almost stomp the brakes when a 40-year old
memory oozes in — two weeks before Thanksgiving,
the windshield icing over (inside), while most definitely
not watching the drive-in movie in Junction City, Kansas,
her warm sighs on your neck and ear, and the art
of opening cheap wine with a hairbrush. How many
construction barrels must one dodge to conjure these
delights, unsought and long misfiled? You turn right
on 29th Street and just for a moment think you’ve seen
an old friend, looking as he did before he died,
but better, and happier, and of course it’s just a trash bag
caught in a plum tree, waving hello, waving goodbye.
“Driving without Radio” was published at Split Rock Review in November 2016. Many thanks to editor Crystal Gibbins for providing a home for this one.
O at the Edges 
What a comfortable stream to follow!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, John. I just let the stream carry me along. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
What an ingenious imagining of your imagination’s ingenuity! 😍
LikeLiked by 1 person
Or something like that. 🙂
LikeLike
Really like this one! Hah, it took me places as a no-radio while driving gal.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, Lynne. I don’t yet know Indianapolis well enough to fall into that pattern. But someday!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Delightful meander!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks very much!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Reading your poetry often triggers flashbacks to “forgotten” scenes that don’t seem at all connected to the triggering lines – amazing!
LikeLiked by 1 person
We may be unique individuals, but we all experience some of the same things. At least that’s my theory. 🙂
LikeLiked by 2 people
Wonderful piece. So incredibly evocative.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you.
LikeLike