The View From the Rear Seat

By Vincent R. Pozon

When you no longer drive, the world blooms,
buildings poke where there weren’t any last
you looked, last you were without the bother
and business of navigation, unkempt
stretches of untitled land lit lonely
by runway lights too far apart are now
strip malls and vendors and videoke joints.

When you no longer have to drive a car,
you are no longer wary, sensitive
to what counsels the other vehicles,
you used to flinch, by an inch, smaller even,
if you felt a car was a little too near,

Their motion, faint, more an intention,
alerts your arm on the wheel, not your sight,
your move to avoid is just as slight,
as a woman invisibly recoils
when a man is peacock and comes too close,
crosses the space the width of a whisper.

When you no longer have a hand on a wheel
to move about in this world, there is time
to watch the patterns rain makes on the glass,
to notice that rain renders a world we prefer,
washed and ambiguous, lights scattered like stars,
the boy inside you squiggles on the mist.

When you no longer have to look ahead,
a world unfolds, people emerge from behind
strip malls, vendors and the videoke joints,
in this previously unnamed part of town,
they stand on the sidewalk, clothes in vogue,
looking past you, waiting for their jeepneys
to take them into their days and futures,
they are off to toil, and though looking grim,
there are smiles hidden inside, for there is work,
the intention to impress, to do good.