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