Featured Poem

Red Light, Green Light

Charlene Stegman Moskal

 

So I’m driving down the road

singing along to oldies

and I forget what I look like.

 

I see me in that space behind my eyes;

my then long brown hair, then face, then body

and I don’t want to think it isn’t true

 

so I don’t pull the mirror down to look.

I know what I’ll see; a stranger behind the wheel

someone old, scary looking,

 

someone I never imagined; a crone, a hag,

a person with a face I don’t recognize

but she has taken my voice into her.

.

It is my voice from then—

strong, strident, belting chest voice

as if I could still sing with my back-up band,

 

move like the girl in the photo, the one in the string bikini

who looks like coffee ice cream melted into the shape

of a woman, tan, long, lean and lovely.

 

And I’m still singing when a young guy at the light

looks, laughs, gives me a thumbs up and I give him

my come-on look, that subtle, slow, sly smile

 

because I forgot this is now;

I am embarrassed. stop singing, pull away fast

when both the light and I change.

 


 



Originally appeared in Coneflower Cafe, Spring 2023.