The Wardrobe's Best Dressed: Automotive by Ceridwen Hall

This selection, chosen by Managing Editor Krista Cox, is from Automotive by Ceridwen Hall, released by Finishing Line Press in 2020.

surface

I vehicle and drift—the usual error—out for groceries; a yellow light demands rapid [but this reckless is mostly systemic—or carbon, and we collude] wheeling left— through traffic—to park; shop, exit

through automatic doors

step by instinct toward my previous model—remember a sudden freeze and sliding downhill, being unable to stop before impact: airbags, repairs, etc.; for years after, I drove cautiously—but dreamed of veering toward bodies of water—until rain flooded the streets and filled my engine


[insurance declared weather]


then I went pedestrian, while oceanside

so I remain in the habit of moving and thinking; worry at crosswalks, what I am capable of forgetting, worry, backing—mind chiming between rear camera lines

 and figures, wandering

Ceridwen Hall is a poet, editor, and educator from Ohio. Although she’s lived on both coasts and in the mountains, she retains a deep appreciation for the Midwest and its roads. She completed her MFA at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and her PhD at the University of Utah, where she received the Clarence Snow Fellowship and the Levis Prize in Poetry. Her poems and essays have appeared in Spoon River Poetry Review, TriQuarterly, Pembroke Magazine, Tar River Poetry, The Cincinnati Review, and other journals.