by Christine Spencer
When the highway patrolman got off duty, he ate pasta in a booth,
told the checkout lady a joke, and I was sitting in his car, laughing,
wishing he’d pull me over, turn on his siren, teach me a little bit
about the discipline of careful driving-you know, love me
the way a cop can’t live without his chocolate-glazed in the morning
but is willing to give up his coffee for a cup of marriage on wheels —
oh the mileage we’d get! driving over freeways into the sunset,
chasing jackrabbits off road at eighty-plus until the C.B. radio goes out
and his snow tires grow flowers — a quiet, off-the-record,
mountainside wedding with two headlight witnesses and the right to
remain silent — a citizen’s arrest with no parole.