Turn Lane

The first few times I drove a car
I remember this feeling of nakedness

or displacement: as if I were walking
down the center of the road,

or standing over the arrow painted on the turn lane,
waiting for the light to change,

or stepping out into the street
in front of a moving car.  They said:

the car will feel like an extension of you,
and it did.  What I could not accept

was that I had a place in this flow
of headlights and taillights.  No,

I would always be a child standing
on the edges, remembering to look both ways,

slipping across a street on quiet feet
quickly.  If I could make that shift inside myself

now, that moment of acceptance, of saying:
yes, I belong on this road between the yellow

and white lines, beside this pick-up truck
also waiting for the green light, I belong

as much as anyone.  If I could again reach out
of my frail body and become those four doors

and those four wheels on this, my road. If
I could make that shift again.  Right now.

 

***

Mary Ann Honaker holds a B.A. in philosophy from West Virginia University, a Masters of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School, and a Creative Writing M.F.A. from Lesley.   She has previously published poetry in 2 Bridges, Harvard’s The Dudley Review, Euphony, Off the Coast, Van Gogh’s Ear,  and many other online and print publications.  Her first chapbook, It Will Happen Like This, was released by YesNo Press in 2015.  She currently lives in Salem, Massachusetts.