Bend in the Road

Swept up and swept away
as though I were seaweed

on the shore, tangled, wet.
So it was that day with a boy—

a motorcycle, too tempting
to say no to, in a flash

I tucked my dress up under me,
feet on the pegs, arms

circling him, scent of tobacco, woodsmoke,
sweat, his thin t-shirt,

spine, ribs, this close 
to a boy I didn’t know,

just Mike and a last name, mumbled—
Marine View Drive lush in ditches

along both sides, cattails,
arrowroot, Queen Anne’s lace,

all the way north to Dash Point
State Park, then we leaned sharp,

turned around to go back.
At the Cliff House I saw

people dressed up from church going
in to eat, me feeling full

of beauty and risk,
not yet thinking of girls

I’d have to face—“Where’d you go?”
“Did you make out with him?”

Then more: “What kind of a name
is Turnipseed? Does he live

down along the Puyallup River
in a tepee?” Sea salt air,

sailboats, sails, white caps
glittering. I was trying to find my legs

for land again. And then
shame like a dark squall

to ruin everything, the necklace
he fished out of a pocket

for me, “Promise?”
I said sure though the floor

rocked, swayed, me tipsy
from being near him.

I held on despite prejudice,
common sense, all the frowns.

PATRICIA CLARK

Patricia Clark is the author of O Lucky Day (Madville, 2025) and Self-Portrait with a Million Dollars (Terrapin, 2020). “What My Father Wished For,” a poem from O Lucky Day, won a Pushcart Prize and will be published in The Pushcart Prize XLX in 2026. She has recently had work published in Plume, Sheila-na-Gig, and the North American Review.