thank you. please don’t ever leave me. by Pearl Button

I read a poem, a letter of love to a stranger
who helped; it made me think
of writing to the mindless
driver who nearly killed me
over some text or other, or to the young men
who thought an old woman driving
alone on a country road was a plaything
to frighten and thereby up their
manhood - writing instead to that implacable
self who takes over in times of sudden crisis
who can swerve a car at high speed, avoid
oncoming cars and resettle into the drive-lane
all without anger or fear or even anxiety
but then when safety comes, will drop
suddenly, leaving me behind, ready to begin
shaking, hollow and breathless in my layby safety
- to that elastic and instantaneous anima that materializes
fully-formed and swerves toward the adolescent white-fellas
driving their mother’s expensive green sedan, driving them
- faces suddenly twisted into shock and dismay -
off the road, ramming their undercarriage
across the road-side ditch, into the frozen, rutted
field beside a road they thought they owned.
It’s she - that stranger who rides inside this woman
just trying to survive the negligent day - that inner
field of intractability that has saved me over
and over, and over and never comes when simply called.
I love you. Please don’t ever leave me.

About the Poet:

Pearl Button lives in the Salishan Territories of western North America. She is published or forthcoming in a variety of journals including The Literary Cauldron, Posit, SurVision Magazine, Skink Beat Review, Impspired, Peculiar Mormyrid, Halfway Down the Stairs and Drunk Monkeys.