Driver’s Ed at 41

Between dated video re-enactments more current
to memory than historical, the instructor relays the story
of a woman he knew who’d left her garage door open,
her pick-up’s windows rolled down. On backing out
onto the gravel drive, she saw a bat flattened
against her visor. Punched it, killed it, bagged it,
and put it in the freezer before taking it to the vet
for testing. What should you do? Look in the direction
you want to go. Roll down the windows. Signal
and pull over to the shoulder. Deal with it. I look back—
to the first person who told me at fifteen that my friend,
newly sixteen, had died. T-boned by a truck on the 20
one late fall morning. To the teacher, who, when I asked
to leave didn’t say, Sorry—only, Funny, I never saw you
two together, as if she ever saw us. Every holiday,
the roadside memorial miraculously redecorated. A front door
to forever. It’s already been years since it’s been years
that she’s been dead longer than she was alive.
Each visit home, I get older. I pass by birthday balloons
caught in crosswinds, Christmas wreaths, pastel
Easter eggs, in the passenger seat of anyone who
will ferry me past the past. Both coming and going, I lift
a hand behind the safety glass and say, “Hi, Mary.”
In a basement classroom, under the glare of shuddering
fluorescents, I turn to the teen beside me, ask if
it’s too late to start again or if I should just keep going.