Poem by David Lehman

BLACK CAR
                 “I have seen myself in the black car.”  C.D. Wright, “Dust”


I have seen myself in the black car 
behind the steering wheel
ignoring the shrill car 
and beer commercials on the radio,
the window open in the heat,
hot sweat on my neck because
the A-C’s on the blink.


I am trying not to think
about the car crash I saw
back there, miles ago, the two cars,
the fire, the ambulance, the police,
the young woman thumbing a ride.
And I knew that a man in a black car
would stop for her and take her away.


May 28, 2017

​

David Lehman's ninth book of poems, Poems in the Manner Of, appeared from Scribner in 2017. He is the author of eight works of non-fiction, including Sinatra's Century: One Hundred Notes on the Man and His World (HarperCollins, 2015). Born in New York City, he is the editor of The Oxford Book of American Poetry and has been the series editor of The Best American Poetry since the annual anthology's inception in 1988. He teaches in the writing program of the New School in New York City. 

​

---