Just take the mountain curves
as tightly to the inside and

as fast as surface conditions permit
and the road’s edge

or yellow center line allow
my father was saying,

concentrating on my desire to learn
all the secrets of driving.

What he meant to tell me,
or so I imagine, was stay alert,

that all roads take caution, pose
on-coming lessons, deep curves

impossible to anticipate at any age.
The easy lesson wound down Woodside Road

toward home that summer I was sixteen.
The roads coming made you drive straighter,

beyond anything you could think you wanted,
away from wherever you intended to go.

Even as you sometimes thrilled
to their terrible ride.

———-
Ed Higgins and his wife live on a small farm in Yamhill, OR, raising a menagerie of animals including two whippets, a manx barn cat (who doesn’t care for the whippets), two Bourbon Red turkeys (King Strut and Nefer-Turkey) and a pair of alpacas named Machu & Picchu. He teaches creative writing and lit at George Fox University where he is Writer in Residence.