Panel, high-low, floor, mix, defrost. Panel, high-low, floor, mix, defrost. Maybe if I keep reading the climate control dials on the dashboard, I won't feel the arm between my legs that isn't your arm. If I stare straight ahead, panel, high-low, floor, mix, defrost, they won't see I'm clenching my teeth and that my eyes are red-rimmed. If I hold still enough, maybe I won't feel the gearshift I'm straddling, squished between these two women, this gearshift that outvibrates my Hitachi magic wand, maybe I won't wince at the arm that hits my breast every time she shifts.

This and the rest of Holding Pattern can be heard in this MP3 file.

Thea Hillman was winner of this year's Books Inc. poetry contest, a finalist for the 1998 SF slam team, won second place in the Berkeley Fiction's Review's Sudden Fiction Contest, and was the winner of the Albuquerque Poetry Festival's Tag-Team Haiku Championship.