Pavement
by Kelsey Shipman


You wash my car

as I sit with white people
and white-enough people

ignoring their babies
for phones and ipods.

You sing the names of cars—

“Lexusss”
______“Neeesan”
____________“Hogwire”

and we dance in our chairs.

It's Monday. A spring afternoon.
Too easy to hover over you.

A chorus of brown faces
singing beneath breaths.

The only thing between us—
pavement.






Copyright © 2024 by Red River Review. First Rights Reserved. All other rights revert to the authors.
No work may be reproduced or republished without the express written consent of the author.