The police car in the bushes of the meridian,
its red light bar like an eyelid suddenly
opening, six eyes flashing about wildly,
looking for me.
"It's an ambush," I thought.
Me, who had my whole empire
in control - even the hairs on my head
were soldiers standing in order, helping me conquer
what I thought I had to own.
I was eighteen. The gas pedal was like all
physical things, destined to fall downward.
And now I confess
I don't remember anything
about the ticket - its cost or the cop
whose hand wrote my birth name
in the tiny squares, incorporating
my identity into the system.
In years I'd know he was just
doing what he had to do - as was I.
"Here's your ticket," he said,
as if he were an usher
whose job was to rip things in half.
"What am I entering?" I thought.
So my empire began to fall on a shoulder
of the Garden State Parkway-
not usurped really, but undermined.
I was eighteen and falling
through society's turnstiles-
college, speed limits, combing my hair
into a daily unnoticeable-
a work of art whose strength
was that it didn't particularly stand out,
like driving well. I drove off,
pushing the accelerator pedal
to the exact angle of, say,
the Tower of Pisa.
How I wanted to topple it.
How it became the only thing in my world
that could ever rise back
...Emperor by B.J. Ward, Changewater
Changewater? Well, that's a new one on me, too. Changewater recently made the New York Times as the home of delicious rutabagas! (Tomatoes and blueberries watch out!)
B.J Ward is a fine teacher of poetry and an even better teacher of teachers of poetry. In this poem, he has sprung from a cage, not on Highway 9, but on the Darkway. Topple a tower today.
Keep reading and writing,
Maureen
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