I would like to think
that everything happens for a reason.
Yes, that is a cliché, but
it’s what I tell myself to get me through
the worst of circumstances,
the oddest of them, too.
It’s a coping tactic I’ve developed
after every heartache, every downfall.
So when you cut me off
on the highway going well under
the speed suggestion of fifty five miles per hour,
needless to say I justified your action.
His children are sick, I think.
They are sitting in the backseat,
and if the car reaches a speed
over forty miles an hour
they will vomit and ruin the upholstery.
And you must have just gotten
the upholstery redone, a fine cream color
that would be just no good
with infected splotches of child sickness,
angrily staining the seats
in a rainbow of preservatives
and corn syrupy sweetness.
So it pains me to say
that once I was able to, safely,
guide my car around yours,
and I looked into your back seat
I found nothing more than
a few empty water bottles,
no illness-ridden seven year-olds.
And you were on your phone, sir,
something prohibited by law
I might add, politely.
It may have been this fact
that caused me to break my own peace treaty.
I apologize for my fist of rage
directed at the hand that held
your iPhone 4s,
for the unkind words I spoke
in the confines of my vehicle,
my use of the word “moron”,
the shake of my head.
None of which you are aware,
as you were having a conversation
most likely with your dying mother,
who you were on your way to visit.
And so I glide my car
back into the lane ahead of you,
reevaluating the last thirty seconds,
switching off my right turn signal,
saying a prayer for your mother’s health.
lewlewbelle 