Hydroplane
A car drives along winding road in West Orange, NJ as an American flag below in the distance behind it in February of 2020. (Zoe Van Gelder for Public Square Amplified)
Since childhood
I’d watch the rain droplets
race one another down the window
I’d watch droplets swallow one another in the
race along the pane
Our car zoomed along the highway, the
speed and wind forcing
Crashes among the droplets against one another
The clouds would be blotched against the sky,
grey and white
From my car seat it would all only excite me
Which droplet will reach the bottom of the window pane first?
Which droplet will win the race?
But when rain becomes downpour
When grey skies turn red
When the wind stops whooshing and begins howling
When my car seat is gone
I wish the car would slow down
and sputter out
a dull hydroplane
As the car sputters into a hydroplane
I can freeze the image out of the window
capture the rain drops in a singular frame
But the car still moves
I can’t decide whether I must be inside or outside of the car
To stop it