Driving Down Gravel Pit Road

A poem

Photo by Pablò on Unsplash

It was my sister in the old blue Austin
who skidded in the gravel and
rolled against the pocked clay bank.
I too feel the wheels tremble
and shift as I drive down
these dusty grey tracks,
fighting the urge to break sharply
and turn back.

We laughed at Uncle Murray,
drunk again, ancient Vauxhall
toppling down the hillside
because he’d been swatting
a bee against the windscreen.

And my own battle with that
glass barrier, mind crushing because
I sat in the middle with no seat belt.

Holding back
from the hurts of childhood
doesn’t let you travel more freely
as if you’d tossed aside heavy suitcases.

Instead you lose the map that tells you
where you began,
that signals the deep black holes
in the road ahead.