Tonight's Poet Corner: Driver's License

Driver's License
by Belinda Roddie

On the bent plastic card
from six years ago,
the name Rowena Gregor
stuck out garishly to him.
He had changed his name to
Rowan Gregor some time back,
when at last he felt like a true
Scotsman, and
all he needed was the feel of the kilt
between his ragged thighs and
hair-capped knees.

He had gone to the DMV to
pick up a new license, and the
woman who changed the gender mark
scowled at him but said nothing. To him,
that hurt more than the backed up cinders
of should-be-kind words and idioms,
presumably clogged against her
epiglottis, which was presumably hidden
behind her ugly ass wattle.

Somehow, however, he had kept this
old driver's license - the hologram
presenting a hairless jawline, pursed
lips, but still the thick eyebrows
that Rowan had always had. Thick, red
eyebrows - the ones his girlfriend
adored so much, reminding him
every time she removed her
necktie and tossed her suit jacket
onto the mantel so her throat could breathe
and she could adequately kiss him.