First time my hands touched a steering wheel,
they froze and sweated all at the same time.
My knees buckled.
The air in my chest
played hopscotch on my lungs.
A college parking lot
abandoned for the summer -
not a vehicle in sight -
and yet I felt like a kid
on a bicycle
pedaling in the Indy 500.
But it was part of my father's directive
driven into him by his father.
Fishing, hunting, facts of life
and steering an automobile through city streets ~
when it came to order,
it was like pick a card, any card,
though eventually I knew
I’d have to deal with his entire hand.
Of course, he never said
okay, now it's time for Shakespeare
or appreciation of the pre-Raphaelite painters
or the lake poets or...
no whiff of an inheritance there.
In books, in galleries,
I was either on my own
or in "ask your mother" land.
I managed to navigate
that parking lot
without hitting another invisible car.
I stopped when he said.
I turned to the right and to the left
without his having to correct me.
He was more relieved than proud
that I learned quickly.
And I got high marks in fishing,
proved too squeamish for hunting
and his fact of life lecture
came three years too late.
My own child learned
hunting and fishing from his grandfather,
told me not to bother
when I slid "How Babies Are Made"
out of its hiding place.
But I did teach him to drive
and in the same parking lot.
Watching him slowly turn corners,
his foot shaking inches above the brake,
I could have sworn
I was seeing myself at the wheel.
A scary moment that -
two sons, nobody the father.