Matt Yurdana

Driving with Danny Domingo

In high school, Danny taught himself
to make the left turn at Old Mill and Calaveras
with his eyes closed. Fifty yards out,
he studied the pitch of the engine,
read the sequence of ruts and potholes
like Braille, memorized the exact chord
in "Walking on the Moon" that signaled

the absolute moment from all others; nothing
to distinguish it from the most mundane
of left turns, nothing extra in his faultless
execution past the eucalyptus and the ditch
spiked with cattails, except for his smile,
how he would lift his head, eyes still shut,
as if welcoming the first drops of rain.


about Matt Yurdana