Late-Night Music on the Car Radio

How fine to be asked on a date!

Proof of my value delivered

by a pimply-faced boy.

Any boy.

The pimples optional.

How I loved being asked.

How I hated going!

Perhaps other girls knew what to say,

how to ask the right questions

to get their dates talking …

about cars,

about sports,

about anything

that might interest

them.

(You didn’t talk about yourself.

Even I,

who knew nothing,

knew that.)

But I didn’t know what to ask.

So, the boys were mostly silent

and awkward

beside me,

and I,

silent and awkward, too.

The evening stretching,

and stretching

and stretching.

Usually, we went to a movie.

Not much more available

in our small town.

And I liked movies.

We didn’t have to talk

in a movie.

But after … oh, after!

The drive-in

for root beers and burgers

or a pork tenderloin sandwich.

I usually chose the pork tenderloin,

the battered and crisply fried pork

stretching far beyond the confines of the bun.

I could nibble, nibble all around

with steady concentration,

avoiding in the near dark,

this boy I barely knew.

Late-night music seeped

from the car radio,

the announcer’s voice,

smoky, husky, suggestive;

the music,

smoky, husky, suggestive, too.

A hand,

crawling, crawling toward me …

I’m an old woman now,

but late-night music

on the car radio

still creeps across my skin

like an uninvited hand.

Photo by Courtney Corlew on Unsplash‍ ‍