Mornings I drive through a lesion in memory
from County Road Five until Bedford.
The shadow of a history only half
forgotten slips between
bricks and sidewalk cracks.
I could be window shopping
for realities both lost in time
and still waiting in my rear-view mirror,
but I’m already running late—
a child makes a dash for the bus and I hit the brakes.
At half past noon,
rusty limbs turn in sockets like clockwork
and pause as a freight train
loudly announces its continued
departure toward eternity.
The sun’s setting face sits pale and pink,
and I wonder if she is tired
of the perennial performance.
I turn to the shuttered eyes next door—
Aren’t you tired too?
It is dark by the time
I have wrapped up my unfinished thoughts
and stuffed them raw into the bottom of my suitcase.
The price of gas fills the empty air
and the radio guides me, finally
Into brutalist jungles of scattered light
where the ground rolls with my footsteps
to the beat and the buzz of the bustling landscape.
Unfamiliarity welcomes me
with a thousand eyes looking elsewhere.
How was your summer?
I told you yesterday. (There is nothing to say.)
Where are you going?
I’m walking home.
