Harold Gates slowed the snow-topped yellow taxi and edged it along the slushy curb to a stop where she stood, shivering in a tattered wool coat in a January blizzard on the steps of her unlit ... [+]
The day I get my diagnosis,
I do not tell anyone. I drive
and drive down 16 Mile,
paralleling the Freedom Trail.
My thoughts and time do not
touch. It is November. I lean into
the throat of winter as the evening
presses itself silently together.
Only tomorrow will I remember my
knuckles, white against the leather
wheel. Joints sharpening against
squares of orange light, falling.
On the way home, I think of highway
signs. The way they always tell us
where to go, how far, how fast.
There is comfort in the unflinching.
I do not tell anyone. I drive
and drive down 16 Mile,
paralleling the Freedom Trail.
My thoughts and time do not
touch. It is November. I lean into
the throat of winter as the evening
presses itself silently together.
Only tomorrow will I remember my
knuckles, white against the leather
wheel. Joints sharpening against
squares of orange light, falling.
On the way home, I think of highway
signs. The way they always tell us
where to go, how far, how fast.
There is comfort in the unflinching.
