Virgin in Headlights, edited.

[vaalski]

Safe Passage

In one motion the door open, hips against
the seat, the engine coughing over, Jim
up front and the boys in back,
half-falling in, all of them drunk
and laughing, the rocking half-wild swing
of long-limbed weight in darkness--

--and me with fingers checking radio and dials,
reaching up to ask safe journey from the feather 
hanging down to brush my cheek, all this as I

breathe in, then let it go. With one

hand I drop the brake, and with the other 

flick the lights as I back up. In

the yard across from mine, the Virgin
Mary sudden-spotlit in the winter grass, hands

and face and rounded belly
half-shadowed, or half-worn.