To the dance . . .
I was seventeen,
and Sarah, sixteen,
was willing to go with me,
a drive through hard falling snow
in the valley beneath mountains,
wipers clearing an arced path
through hoary darkness.
A mountain of responsibility
on my adolescent shoulders,
life and death,
hers and mine, in my hands,
and this was just the beginning.
Her parents, my parents, waiting genetic pairs
behind doors in different houses 19 miles apart
on edge with similar but quite different concerns.
Years and decades,
life and death in my hands,
wife, children, their friends,
my friends, hitchhikers who trusted me.
By the numbers, I have driven the equivalent of the
2010 population of Scottsbluff, Nebraska safely home.