Walking Home Blacksburg Virginia June 1974 Poem by Shery Beasley

I had just passed the abandoned Victorian house,
the tombstones in the adjacent cemetery,
the carved angels and lambs

when I heard the car turn off the main road
and rumble to a crawl behind me-

Hey, lady, needa ride?

He was alone behind the wheel. I could see his tee shirt
wet with sweat, his cigarette
like a part of him, but languid in his hand.

The hair had risen on my neck and I knew he could see
my heart pounding under my tank top,
my bra missing.

Something warned me not to answer,
just keep walking, and I didn't look at him again,
though he rolled the car behind me

and honked the horn, yelling and cursing
before he gunned the engine and sped off in a fit
of dust and gravel

that summer I was twenty-one and decided
to walk home from school, out there,

beside the empty, fenceless fields.