MY UBER DRIVER GETS IT

I climbed into the passenger’s seat
and told the elderly woman
behind the wheel
who asked me
how I am doing
that I was “hanging in there”
she waited a beat
as she merged into traffic
before she claimed
that I stole her line
and to keep hanging in there.
she said life can be very difficult
and her weary eyes met mine
in the rear view mirror
to offer me a slice of wisdom
trembling out of the gushing
blood of her humanity.

Kevin Ridgeway is the author of Too Young to Know (Stubborn Mule Press) and nine chapbooks of poetry including Grandma Goes to Rehab and Girls! Girls! Girls! (Analog Submission Press, UK). His work can recently be found in Slipstream, Chiron Review, Nerve Cowboy, Plainsongs, San Pedro River Review, The Cape Rock, Trailer Park Quarterly, Main Street Rag, Cultural Weekly and The American Journal of Poetry, among others. He lives and writes in Long Beach, CA.