Stale Green

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.