Road Test by Sam Schanwald

I wrote a poem about my experience taking my road test for my license (which I finally got).


Road Test

Coming at me, precisely 32 mph,

Not too fast and not too slow,

Passable.

A furry wretched thing,

With its legs up in the air,

Four little sweaty emaciated dancers,

Mounted in a sandbag-thing of fur,

And its waterslide mouth open,

Ready to swallow me whole,

If I were miniscule,

And the metal death-box I drive

Were miniscule.

I swerve,

And leave it in a shroud of pavement dust.

Did he dock me points?

I glance at his clipboard.

Not writing,

His old hand,

Sensible wedding band,

Pen flat down on top of black and white digits

That say things about my residency and age,

But not my dead friend hugging the yellow lines.

I pull into the space he tells me to,

Right beside the blue minivan,

And I think about the owner of the minivan

And how he might have made the same decision

Or might have been the killer himself.

“You passed.”