The Side of the Road

By Lynne Schmidt

The year my sister finally invites me, and only me,
to trek from Michigan to the East Coast
in her tiny purple car,
my bags are packed before she can complete the offer.

In the world before smartphones,
she places an atlas on my lap,
and tells me to navigate,
says, Tell me if there is anywhere interesting to stop.

I pick things like national preserves,
the statue for the Shot Heard Around the World
and learn it happened on my birthday.

Somewhere in West Virginia
my sister pulls over to the side of the road,
slamming so quickly my seatbelt locks.

She turns the radio volume up,
rushes out of the car,
invites me to dance with her to a Madonna song.

When people ask me about my sister,
this is how I picture us,
forever dancing, forever young, on the side of the road.

Lynne Schmidt is the grandchild of a Holocaust survivor, and mental health professional with a focus in trauma and healing. She is the winner of the 2020 New Women's Voices Contest and author of the chapbooks, Dead Dog Poems (forthcoming from Finishing Line Press), Gravity (Nightingale and Sparrow Press) which was listed as one of the 17 Best Breakup Books to Read in 2020, and On Becoming a Role Model (Thirty West), which was featured on The Wardrobe's Best Dressed for PTSD Awareness Week. In 2012 she started the project, AbortionChat, which aims to lessen the stigma around abortion. When given the choice, Lynne prefers the company of her three dogs and one cat to humans.