PAD Day 2: A Safe Space

Today's prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) write a "space" poem, and (2) "write a poem about a specific place —  a particular house or store or school or office. Try to incorporate concrete details, like street names, distances ('three and a half blocks from the post office'), the types of trees or flowers, the color of the shirts on the people you remember there."
These two prompts meshed pretty well today, and the obvious response would have to be reflective of the sheltered times we are going through right now. This is about one of the safer places I feel these days, other than home.

Civic

A round rubber foundation that moves

with a simple key turn, a shift of a lever

and a pump on a pedal.

My new safe space. Not living in it,

but in a sense, living through it.

No crowds in here, few germs (I pray)

and a decent sound system.

The dark gray dashboard is fuzzy

with a film of dust, and random papers

litter the floor, but it's my mess.

I'm not too far from anything here -

my favorite takeout is 1.6 miles

down the road. They open their window,

and I open mine, the bagged transfer

of victuals - minimum contact.

A turbaned guy pumps my gas

(Jersey is still full-service),

and we pass my card back and forth.

If I have to exit this steel-glass bubble,

I don my gloves and mask,

stay a person-length away from anyone

avoid chit-chat, get my necessities,

and walk out into an invisible haze

of particles that look like tiny golf balls

studded with tees.

Many, but fewer, of us are moving like this,

self-isolation on the highway, keeping

a safe distance, just as they always told us

in Driver's Ed, so we don't crash

into one another and die.