Jacqueline Moss

JUNCTURE

Freewheeling down the Pennsylvania turnpike

the last day of school

You steered the car

Past the left turn exit

that led to my home

Kept your foot on the petal

heading north

towards yours

In that split second    the decision was made

We would stay together

The road

Became our aisle

We married in the car

There was no license

Or veil

Just the clinking of two souls

The silent understanding

That the two

Had become one

Once I got to New York

I called my dad on the phone

To let him know

I would not be coming home

There was something in his voice that told me

He was relieved

that I took the proposal

That he thought I was smart

to avoid his steep decline

Right at that juncture

Where Rte 31 veered off from 70

I had my baptism in fire

Walked barefoot on red hot coals

The daughter became a bride

The future handed her roses

JACQUELINE MOSS’s poems have appeared regularly in the Long Island Quarterly over the past thirty years. Her poems reach for the luminosity that lies outside the lines of 3D reality. She can usually sense when a poem has wings.