If a young girl cuts you off on the highway

 

She, muscling pagan yellow

                        convertible around

empty gravel parking lot

                        decides figure-8 – and

does it

 

Daddy riding shotgun for

                        his life, his wind-

deranged hair, his wild

                        eyes, breaks squawking

 

cool brown-leafed night settling

                        over car hood, engine

panting at lot’s edge

 

lump gathering in his throat

                        all their years.

 

 

2007 by Robert Bové

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