Lunchtime Cab Ride

The taxi driver has a poem
fastened to the steering wheel:
verse inscribed to lined paper
in clean, unshaken, capital letters.

From the back seat I try to steal
a few words, try to piece together
lines and stanzas, but I just catch
the serif tails of "history", "daily", "rich"
before they slither beneath thin dark arms.

I wait for left and right turns;
as we turn corners, a few full phrases
glance up between his fingers,
and I can almost read them,
the words collecting, accumulating
like the numbers on the fare machine.
But then we are driving straight again,
where arms protect the secrets on the pages,
shield me from the truths
of a steering-wheel verse.

— barbara fletcher