today while driving I was listening
to “Little Red Corvette” when a red
Corvette pulled out
in front of me & the traffic slowed
so that the tail lights lit up my face
so close were we
and I became so embarrassed I turned
down my stereo so the Corvette’s
driver couldn’t hear
she had a pocketful of horses / Trojans
and some of them used afraid as I was
he would think I was
trolling him and who wants to
piss off anyone in a Corvette
especially in a ten-
year-old Civic with a scuff down
the side made by my grandmother’s
bumper in the narrow
drive I won’t even wear a t-shirt
into the store where I bought it
even if it was years
ago because I don’t want them
to think I’m a shoplifter I once
took a rubber
spider from the Food Lion its black legs
gelatinous its fangs painted red
it was before
I could shelve my memories
with how old I was I must’ve been
three four for
nights I laid awake listening
for sirens sure my cop father
would have turned
me in when I was a girl
I was a boy most days I made
a beard from cotton
balls hot-glued to felt and slung
around my ears by elastic string I
played the father
in all games of house the doctor
who cut the baby out of her
stomach and I bang-banged
as the Sherriff (my mother misspelled
it on the badge) I only became embarrassed
when someone said
you can’t do that and I thought yes
maybe I couldn’t only then so I became
quiet as an unfired
weapon made with a finger
and thumb the best thing my love
ever said to me was in
a drive-thru Em you look so beautiful
in red tail light I thought for an instant
about driving up beside
that Corvette maxing out the volume
on my ironies my pitch all my off-key
fucks I shouldn’t give