The blind man learned to drive near Bear Creek Park

Herman Sutter

May 12, 2024

late at night

on his mother’s lap

(only ten years old).

Holding the wheel,

feeling it tremble as she let go,

he sensed the car 

understood

something he never would.

It was always the same 

road. Always the 

same hum of the asphalt 

rolling away. And always 

the sigh of the gin 

as she laughed and the sound

of the window rolling down

and the smell of the wet

as they approached the reservoir, 

and the sadness of her

remembering: That’s where 

your father used to take me when...

And then the laugh.

And always the quiet

afterward filled with the wet

and the gin and the sound

of the wind whispering: Keep 

your eye on the road, mister,

even if you can’t see.

Herman Sutter (award-winning poet/essayist) is the author of Stations (Wiseblood Books), and The World Before Grace (Wings Press), and “The Sorrowful Mystery of Racism,” St. Anthony Messenger. His work appears in The Perch (Yale University), The Langdon Review, Benedict XVI Institute, Touchstone, i.e., The Merton Journal, as well as Texas Poetry Calendar (2021) & By the Light of a Neon Moon (Madville Press, 2019). He received the 2021 Best Essay award from the CMA. His recent manuscript A Theology of Need was long-listed for the Sexton Prize.