Speeding Ticket

I got a speeding ticket the other day,
whipping too quickly around a corner,
divebombing the blackness of an unlit country road
and officer PJ Hearn and his badged buddy
u-turned to follow my naked white rental.

They coasted on the leaved asphalt behind me
for at least a couple of miles before
smilingly deciding to flip on the blues.
I had never been pulled over before
and I was too naïve to force my face to
look anything other than defenseless.

PJ's chest, thick as a tree trunk, bounced
up and down in my teeny side mirror;
his face, after I rolled down my window,
looked as pockmarked as a restaurant spoon
and his lips like someone had razored them
that thin. I tried to make myself look
young or hot or seductively foreign,
but my face screwed together instead,
clamoring to hide in the pockets of my gums
and I ended up just weakly handing him
my license and a creased insurance card.

His backside wobbled back to his metal patriot.
His partner, with a face as wide as a dresser,
stuck his bottom lip out like a drawer
as PJ weighed the car down and shut the door.
I watched them, shadowy animated blobs
sometimes highlighted by passing headlights
through my rearview mirror, feeling like
I should just hit the accelerator and go.

Instead, I slunk down in the driver's seat,
floundering for something to clutch,
a rosary or a love, against my aching,
unsubstantiated vulnerability, a blind terror
of authority. I remembered a small, blond
version of myself sitting in the "bad corner
in pre-school, watching the other children
count out on flashcards, fiercely embarrassed
at breaking a rule my parents never taught me.

P.J. returned, his clipboard humping
against his fat wrist. Slowly bending at the waist,
he stuck his elbow in the nook of my window frame,
the black uniform cloth stretching grey, his breath
smelling like acidic coffee and salad dressing and
told me how to pay and where to go if I wanted to
contest.

"Mrs. Schultz, now I'll need you to sign
right here at this blank and be safe now.

I signed the resolute blank

Afterwards, when his blues cut off in the blackness,
I cried at my own vulnerability, the sad
fragile shell that slid open at the first sign of a fight,
the well-sculpted nest of paper that left me
feeling spirit-blown and shamefully in love.