Doctor’s Orders

So what if her doctor said she shouldn’t drive?
She’d been driving since she was thirteen
and how can you forget what a stop sign is, anyway?
It’s an octagon, red, blaring at you through the fog.

She adjusts the mirrors on her old teal minivan
and backs out of the garage,
rumbles toward the grocery store
at twenty miles per hour,

because it’s easier
to wrap her hands around a steering wheel
than to wrap her mind around the pamphlets
piled on her coffee table

that explain so tactfully why she will forget
the faces of her grandchildren.