Good Wives Don't Drive
My father refused to teach my mother
how to drive his car, he said it
wasn’t ladylike in 1949, a woman driver
was no better than a streetwalker she was
to take the bus and be a good wife like
his mother was so my mother took secret
driving lessons, the instructor man
coming every day in his grey sedan
to show her how to let out the clutch
just right so the car wouldn’t jerk, how
to work the choke and the radio, make
turn signals, arm bent up for right
straight out for left, down for slow
me in the backseat watching as we drove
the L.A. streets: Firestone, Rosemead
Sunset Boulevard, Pico, La Brea and
Santa Fe and the day she got her driver’s
license she bought herself a green 1939
Ford coupé and waited in the front seat
in the driveway for my father to come home
honked the horn at him when he arrived
and said Hey handsome, need a ride?
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