can only be compared to the scent

 of my Uncle Pete’s Delta 88

 the night he hit a skunk.


 Dizzy. Nauseous. Breathing

 into a pillow. All across

 Tennessee and Arkansas —


 a warning for speeding

 in Paducah, the orange-lit

 on-ramps of Memphis,


 the flooded fields of Jericho —

 my mother in the front seat

 refusing to acknowledge it.
 


Martha Silano is our Poet in Residence for March. 

Previously: Angel of the Wind, and One More Monarch.