Beth Johnson

Here behind the wheel, my thoughts are

tonnage in the cranium,

compressing matters without simplifying

anything.

 

Their force attracts all that is bleak and

discarded on this crowded

highway, scrap metal

rusted and pocked, layered with

lame attempts to hide scars.

 

At such speed where am I to go but forward, dangerously, and into what?

 

Each car passing could be my

death, when once I had

life strapped in so neatly.

 

And what if I am

drawn to it? What if I

ride the blind spots, tail the

hot-rod, aggravate the

lane change?

 

Would life end quickly

without a sound?

Or would there be a droning horn

distorted like my body in the arcade mirror,

moaning like a Tom Waits song,

floating into the slow screech where rubber meets metal and metal meets concrete

 

Would I journey through space, leave my

body before graving the asphalt,

a grotesque specimen

haunting an innocent passerby

 

Better then

to pull off into a dark

parking lot, lock the door, and

walk toward a distant light

’til a stranger says

 

 

“Hey lady,

your lights are on.”