Eric Paul Shaffer: ‘Steering into the skid’Steering into the skidSteering into the skid seems like the right action at onceupon a time on black ice or a frozen bridge, but in the middle,the car does what a car will do, and I am a hapless voyagerat the mercy of forces without. Sitting in the driver’s seatand gripping the steering wheel makes no differencein a car on ice. Sliding in a direction I did not knowI was going, I watch trees spiral by the windshield,guardrail approaching, other traffic slewing and slammingbrakes to floorboards to erase what is clearly my mistake. I wish for guidance, for patience, for fortitude while speedpeels away, inertia barely present where tongues of rubberand ice meet in a flat bare landscape slipping sidewayslike the power we think we control because we tenderedthe cash. And that tree, vertical and final, is not moving;the car is moving, with power I pressed into the engine,power missing the kiss of traction, power I dreamedI controlled, could…