Line of Traffic
I steer my suburban big-size car with a free hand
moving down the four-lane divided limited
access highway
full of cars just full of cars
me in the thick of it
the feeling
I’m the one
somehow keeping the whole thing going along
I falter
brake lights come on
I set a pace
we all do fine
I’ve been a licensed driver
longer than many of these other people around me
have been living
forty years ago
when I was learning to drive
navigating narrow blacktops
trying to stay out of the ditches
either side of the road with the weeds
growing person-high
watching me terrified behind the wheel.
Now
I stamp on the gas
push my way into the exit lane
crossing traffic coming out of the turnpike entrance
shout at the guy who has the nerve to honk at me
in the endless looping pattern
of traffic and driving
brake and accelerate
accelerate and brake
in with the crowd running down the highway
1/25/18
2/1/18
Claudia McGill Writes Poetry, Did You Know That? 
Once upon a time, I was this kind of driver: confident, assertive, determined. That was back when I was a city driver. I think I went soft during my decade of living in a very rural area and then emigrating plonked me into a different system and, well, I am definitely not as confident and assertive as I once was.
I think I got a real upgrade in my driving skills in the 80’s when I had to drive all over the city for work. It seemed to knock a lot of fear out of me (you get that way when you find you are going down a street wrong way one lane in North Philadelphia in the dark, looking for a factory parking lot…).