I-95 to Baltimore

We must have been

The very image of

White trash that night

Battered truck

Holes in the knees of

My tattered jeans

I was barefoot

We had an upright piano

A toilet

construction tools

And two hound dogs

In the bed

My feet hung

out the window

to catch the breeze

We were headed

all the way to Vermont

in one long shot

That trip has become family

Legend: the first time we

traveled together

I-95 North was, then,

a wasteland between

DC and Baltimore

where drug smugglers baited

state troopers

in nondescript cars

Which might be why

a thousand cars

had passed the Toyota

sedan on the side of the road

But it was probably

because they were

Six young Black men.

The man who became

my husband pulled over

white knight to the rescue

without thought

to race or peril

I fell a little more in love

watching him cheerfully

offer a lift to the nearest

filling station.

Their astonishment speared

my heart as I squeezed over

to fit four into a

three-person bench seat.

Two for safety:

we could have been

crackers on a joyride

in rural America

We managed.

Me shifting the gear knob

between my knees

while he steered.

They prattled on

about their schooling

and their jobs

as if we needed proof

that they were harmless.

We left them under

sizzling fluorescents

two miles down the road

with a gas can and an

assurance that they’d

be okay from there.

It was just

a kindness between strangers.

The moment sticks in my mind

because I’m still waiting

For that to be true.