A driver in the adjacent lane extends
a middle finger as if to say
I’m driving too slowly in the slow lane.
The unspoken word belly flops in the acid
juice and tangle of my stomach.
The driver’s front teeth bite down
on the lower lip and a letter blooms
like fire like fear like a voice finally free
from the mouth.
Without another glance, I know
the features of this face.
Violence is gnarled and bruised purple.
What else is there to do but receive it
like a sponge, wring it out, and lay it down
damp in the kitchen sink.
Rashna Wadia’s poems appear or are forthcoming in Catamaran, Terrain.org, Whale Road Review, Rust & Moth, Salt Hill Journal and elsewhere. Her work has received support from VONA/Voices, Open Mouth, and Kenyon Review. She lives in the SF Bay Area with her husband and two cats, and is the poetry editor at Fahmidan Journal.