Left Turn

In America's parking lots there may be a million of me
short blonde ladies still sporting perms
driving, distracted, in sensible sedans
We belt out the words to the '70s songs
mumble the chorus on anything else
We're the ones who majored in English at school
and always can supply the grammar rule
We know which their it is you want and
how to spell "a little" and "a lot"
I know what we're really thinking
as we sit there, clueless, signal still blinking
a load of groceries in the back
and two kids late for practice after school
We dream of Rilke's silken lines
the way Professor Soulblitz used to say them
and cool, blue evenings where oboes play
as dark-eyed men write sonnets that compare us
to a summer's day