Backseat
Rider
by Marjie Giffin
by Marjie Giffin
Crammed
into the backseat
of
my daughter’s new Toyota Rav4
with
two life jackets, a sack
of
boxed cookies, a carton full
of
tri-colored tissue-wrapped gifts,
my
hefty purse, extra tennis shoes,
and
this notebook, I scribble.
I
contemplate my destiny:
relegation
to the backseat
for
the rest of my days.
I
now have senior status
which,
translated, means
I
pay for gas and hotel rooms
and
stops for burgers and fries,
and
I sit forever in the back
with
the baggage.
I
have brought too much stuff,
my
suitcase weighs too much,
my
head is in the way
of
my son-in-law’s rearview mirror.
I
need too many potty stops,
my
phone volume is set too loud,
I
forgot to bring the correct change
for
the trail of toll booths.
My
varicose veins throb
due
to my crumpled position,
and
my neck aches from
bending
my head out of sight.
I
dare not complain, or I will be
stereotyped
as a crabby old biddy—
anything
I say can so easily
be
turned against me.
Up
front, the radio is dialed
to
their
station, the cup holders
are
filled with their
drinks,
and
there, the leg-room is ample.
Back
here, I chafe away at my age
and
suddenly understand my mother
so
much better than I did when, years
before,
I assigned her to the same seat.
From
Marjie Giffin: I am a
Midwestern writer who has authored four regional histories and whose
poetry has recently appeared in Snapdragon, Poetry Quarterly, Flying
Island, So It Goes Literary Journal of the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial
Library, the Saint Katherine Review, Through the Sycamores, and the
Blue Heron Review. One of my plays was recently produced in the
IndyFringe Short Play Festival. I'm active in the Indiana Writers’
Center and have taught both college writing and gifted education.