​excerpt from THE BOOK OF FOOLS: AN ESSAY IN MEMOIR AND VERSE
​

​[FIRST TAXI]

​I stepped off the Greyhound into a light rain, streetlights
slurred, just shy of the border, a line of taxis at the curb,
 
waiting, right where my mother said they would be.
I had never gone anywhere alone in my life.  And I guess
 
I thought I was supposed to bargain. “How much to ride
through the slow rain of my whole life?”  Twelve dollars.
 
“How much to step inside a painting that has waited
since the day of my birth?”  Twelve dollars.
 
Twenty-one, just out of college, the high school genius
with no job or prospects—afraid to talk to people--
 
If I looked half as lost as I felt, I was sure I’d be fleeced.
 “How much to tell her that I have forgiven her?”
 
Twelve dollars. “That I have not, but I will.”  Still twelve.
That was America, everything a fixed price.  He didn’t say
 
“Empty your pockets, empty the pail of blueberries
you picked with her when you were five, empty the beaches
 
where she swam, sand by sand.”  I like to imagine
I asked last, “How much to go to the International Motel?”
 
and he said ten.  But, really, I just quibbled,
then checked with each cab in the queue.  All said twelve.
 
and I got in.  This was America.  And that was me.
Bargaining for a taxi to go see my dying mother.
                                   


​
Originally published in The Tupelo Quarterly.