Friday, April 2, 2021

Waiting in Line at the DMV on Good Friday in a Pandemic


When I arrive, 30 minutes before opening,

the line, everyone six feet separate,

stretches past an ice cream shop and a donut shop

through an empty lot of lifeless weeds.

By 7:30 a.m., the line extends

down a side street, and people have brought lawn chairs.

The sun has risen, but the air is 22 degrees, 

and my toes hurt. One must suffer, 

one way or another, at the DMV.


We pilgrims are silent.

The man two people behind me tries three times

to get the man between us to admit his humanity

to chuckle, to confess, to agree,

but the man only grunts. He knows the rules: 

it may be a sunny morning, 

and Christ might have died for us,

but we are in line at the DMV.


As I planned my mission,

my husband asked me, “Can you imagine

working every day for forty years

at the DMV? Wouldn’t you hate people too?”

But a woman in a Carhartt coat 

and warm, sturdy boots works the line.

She holds the book I brought about the Little Rock Nine

but am too frozen-fingered to open

as I check that I have the right paperwork.

She calls me honey, like I’m her beloved

niece and not some 46-year-old woman shivering

in the bright morning sun in an empty lot

on the morning of Good Friday.

I AM the Beloved 

she serves at the DMV.