Emily Vance Brown

“Does your mother know you drive like that?”
You were angry and I was mortified. 
He was younger than I am now, 
blonde, in a black leather jacket 
some student would scavenge for 
seven bucks at the thrift store 
ten years later, skid marks and all.

In my memory, he smirks, or maybe 
that was you. I like to think of you, 
still, as the foreteller of men’s stupidity, 
shaking your head while you speak 
as if you know the decision is already set. 
Any support to the opposition is 
merely a matter of liability. 

You asked for his name, remember?
You told him you knew his mother 
(you didn’t) and she would be so 
disappointed. The mothers are always so 
disappointed. He rolled his eyes and 
it hurt your feelings but I was uncomfortable
so I rolled mine too. You didn’t notice.

This is no country for old women. 
You spoke to the doctors in the 
same voice you used with your 
second husband and you spoke
to your second husband in the 
same voice you used with the kid 
on the bike and I didn’t understand.

Somewhere, a stoplight turns green and 
a young man on a motorcycle flies away.