This poem is in honor of a beloved geometry teacher and drivers ed instructor: Mr. Cochran. I learned too late to appreciate him as much as I should have all along. I have tried not to repeat that mistake again. Of all the lessons he taught me about proofs and parallel parking, transversals and interstates, certainly the most significant lesson I learned from him is to try to treat people as if it were their last day on earth.
The third intersection in a row
I’ve been able to
for the rarest time
drive straight through
makes me think
“stale green,”
the foreboding unknown
Mr. Cochran warned me of,
not in geometry class,
but in the burgundy Dodge Intrepid.
As I entered the driver’s seat
John K had just vacated -
his basketball-center legs
rendering me
a toddler -
I saw the sidelong smirk
of a man attaining
intentional satisfaction -
a deliberately planned
and perfectly executed
shenanigan,
like the prank he proudly recounted
of turning all his friend’s screens’ brightnesses
to zero
or setting all his alarms
to 2:34
am.
Stale green came up
past the cornfields
and the soybeans,
by the street signs
to the interstate,
the blurred forest,
and I-74 exit 132.
It settled down
at the McDonalds
long enough for me to practice
dodging yellow pylons
and ordering through a window.
Then, the switch back:
John’s knees tucked up by the horn
in the burgundy
clown-car sedan.
The sidelong smirk spoke.
Stale green
again.
