Road Trip in a Honda with a Stuck Door                      
                           After Nazim Hikmet

Raul steers the old Honda
from Nashville to San Antonio.

We’re rolling by sign after sign
I’m sipping Nehi Grape, radio

high as it can go. I’m in
the passenger’s seat— half

thoughts, quick illuminated
daydreams, 20-minute roadside

jaunts. Which one?
Lynette’s Drive-in, home

of the quarter pound chili
dog—5 miles, exit 44

at Brownsville or Stuckey’s,
flavored popcorn, pecan log rolls

& fill ‘r up—15 miles, East Memphis
off-ramp. My mangled door

is stuck in lock mode but suddenly, I love
this! He maneuvers around

the grille & headlights, treats me
nice, like the prom date I never had

& prys it open with a screwdriver. I didn’t
want to go anyway; prom was for jocks, pep

clubbers & pom pomers. Oh how I loved
the 70s. I lie to my mom, say I’m going

to an overnight at Marsha Jean’s
& snake into the city on an express

line with my scraggly pod
of misfits—wearing fringe & hand

embroidered rainbows & peace
signs. We found an R

rated movie house that looked
the other way & in Jackson

Park I tongue kissed Willie, coiling
for an hour under a green

tartan blanket snagged
from Goodwill. I loved the taste

of rebellion & getting past first
base but now I’m past late stage

middle age & I have the wisdom
to see the need for frivolity

& rituals. Thirty years
later I changed my mind, a prom

date could have been nice. I would
have loved to dance with my arms

scizzoring the rose-lit
gymnasium air like sea

gulls to Psychedelic Shack.  I’d wear
a pale yellow gardenia corsage & a long

strapless sheath my mother
would have conceived using her Singer

silk. It’s her sewing that yanks
my heart now. Mama, I’m sorry

I was so snotty. In a reverie
her hands begin to wrinkle & I fall

in love with her long scarlet
nails, perfectly

filed, though they are permanently
gone from sight. Can I make up for lost

or wasted time?  Regardless, we should throw
proms for 60 year-olds, even older. If you’re listening

Mama—from Exit 44 or from Lynette’s
where you’re loving the split pea

soup with ham, buttering a biscuit—I forgive
you for the whiskey & I call our love whole. 

Now Raul & I are on the Arkansas
side of Interstate 40, signs for Little

Rock & Texarkana popping up. We veer
off the I-40 to the back

roads. Oh how I love this! I didn’t
realize how much I needed to go

off course. We look for Johnny
Cash’s childhood home in Dyess, fish

for smallmouth bass in the Ozarks & I amble
my way to more forgiveness. I look up to grey

blue where like a rune like a pale
moon summons. A cumulonimbus swells.