Honesty<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It\u2019s true I drove an SUV once
\nthrough Fresno with a backseat full
\nof college boys to whom I found myself
\nhaving to explain you could still catch herpes
\neven while wearing a condom. One of them
\nin particular was incredulous, he was listening to his I-pod
\nand he removed his headphones and said he had
\na few more questions. These were my husband\u2019s
\nvarsity runners, and I was a volunteer, so I was awarded
\nthe new rental with only four miles on it when we left
\nthe lot. I\u2019m not going to lie\u2014
\nI liked driving it. It was nothing
\nlike riding coach or making love
\nwith protection. There were so many buttons
\nto push, and they all did something satisfying,
\nlike drop from the ceiling a DVD player
\nfor passengers or warm the driver\u2019s legs
\nin just the right places. The seats were leather,
\nthe kind you feel guilty just sitting on,
\nthe good kind of guilty when you can\u2019t help
\nbut imagine parking somewhere with someone
\nso you can watch the stars rise over the city,
\ntake time to check out all the automatic features.
\nThe boy you\u2019re with will want to know
\nhow things work, and you\u2019ll end up showing him,
\nbecause he is young, because he has a bag of sour apple
\nor peach fruit rings he\u2019s willing to share, because his face
\ncan look so becoming in the streetlights.
\nBut mostly it\u2019s because you can no longer remember
\nwhere you were going. Was it to dinner?
\nWere you taking him back to his hotel, where
\nhe\u2019ll sleep, dream of winning?
\nOr maybe it was a nighttime snack
\nrun. The SUV is black
\nand the night is blacker. You can feel it
\nclosing, like a fist around a steering wheel.
\nYou\u2019re not the fist. You\u2019re the wheel.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cHonesty\u201d first appeared in Rattle.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Maya Jewell Zeller<\/a> has spent most of her life in the Pacific Northwest. Her first book, Rust Fish,<\/a><\/em> was released in April 2011 from Lost Horse Press. Individual poems have won awards from Sycamore Review, Crab Orchard Review, Florida Review, <\/em>and Dogwood,<\/em> and appear in recent issues of Rattle, Rock & Sling, <\/a>The Bellevue Literary Review,<\/em> and elsewhere. Maya lives in Spokane with her husband and daughter, and teaches English at Gonzaga University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Honesty It\u2019s true I drove an SUV once through Fresno with a backseat full of college boys to whom I found myself having to explain you could still catch herpes even while wearing a condom. One of them in … Continue reading