In the Car
My dad gave me a quarter
Every time I put on my seatbelt first
He made the mistake
of saying
Anytime I wanted a book
He’d buy it for me
I brought a book with me everywhere
And when it got dark
and we were driving home
I’d read line by line
in brief snatches
as we passed one streetlight
after another
But when I knew we were getting close to home
I’d pretend to have fallen asleep
Cuz I knew that
Even though I was getting too big
My dad would carry me
into the house
Rather than
Wake me up.
Wally Wright writes memoir-driven poems about queer life, bad decisions and lingering Catholic guilt. His work has been published in Queerlings, Rat's Ass Review, Scrawl Place and elsewhere. He lives in Chicago and runs the travel blog The Not So Innocents Abroad with his husband, Duke.