Driving Lesson

I drive us to the retail park. 

It is that first night of autumn 

When lightness starts to pace away,

A trembling-pistolled dueller.


My hands are childishly clumsy in steering

Veering into the wrong lane

I have never been this far before

Exhaled with the ghost of laughter

You smile at this too-


But I am sweatily serious.

The thinning branches that scrape the doors

Remind me that each second is excruciatingly novel,

That a life can hurtle by and leave you choking on the exhaust.


In the slow strobing streetlight 

We career past the farm gates

That were the boundaries of my universe,

To a terrifying, brave and nauseous world. 









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