Michael Blaine

Novice Driver
 
The magnetic tag Novice Driver sticks
slanted on the rear lift hatch door
It is for my son and a note to others
that he is unsure
as he navigates
the hardened path
marked before him
 
In the passenger seat I steer
without mechanics
suggest each adjustment to keep
him lined up
between white line
and the middle
broken one
 
I should tell him
at some later date
better yet
casually mention
when things have settled
 
The magnetic tag
was really
for me.

Michael Blaine’s chapbook, Murmur (Bay Oak Publishing), was the winner of the 2005 Dogfish Head Poetry Prize. His second chapbook, Brackish Water (Broadkill Publishing) was published in 2016. He is a 2006 Delaware Fellowship of the Arts recipient in the field of Poetry. A few publications of his work have appeared in: The Jabberwock Review, Baltimore Review, Georgetown Review, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Frogpond, and American Tanka. Blaine has also had cartoons published in the English Journal and an article in Chesapeake Bay Magazine.