The Ride

The night after the day you

Tore the scab off your knee, you find yourself

Trying to hail a cab after eleven

On a school night.

You stood there on the curb in the rain

While your knee began to bleed,

Until your face lit up

In the oncoming headlights.

He had an eighty-seven Mustang

That your mother didn’t like.

He was laying on the horn

And opened the driver’s side door.

The sound was so loud

That you almost ran back inside,

It hit this note

Ripped from the throat of Charlie Parker.

Climbing over him,

You felt a pain in the scabbed-over spot

Like your knee knew

Something you didn’t.

And was trying to warn you

As the blood started to clot

As you sunk into the leatherette

And cigarette smoke.

You found it so odd – like he was here all along

Waiting in the dark, just to drive you home.

J.R. Barner is a writer, teacher, and musician living in Athens, Georgia. They are the author of the chapbooks Burnt Out Stars and Thirteen Poems and their collection, Little Eulogies. Their work has appeared in Flow, ONEART, Suburban Witchcraft, Impspired and others, both online and in print. New work is available periodically at jrbarner.tumblr.com