creaky honda civic engine groans its way
through the bottom of the valley as the sun
sets through tornadocoded clouds, bathing
the evening in orangedusts and ambermists
as i rocket over knolls, huckleberry vapor
swirling my lips as serpents would, coiling
to oblivion. i swear i was born to feel asphalt
through four rubber rings while they grip
the road and all of its ridges, to sing i’ll fly away
oh glory against the rippling of air through
the window as i approach the highway,
starkfluorescent under streetlamps until
there is nothing but dark. have i mentioned
that headlights are getting too goddamn bright
these days, that i haven’t always had an astigmatism
but i think i got covid once, before we knew
it was covid? and now that thing i read about
the virus and human retinas is etched into me
like the time i found out that a plastic straw,
at just the right angle and velocity in a car crash,
can bore its way through the roof of an un
suspecting mouth. some things just ruin you
like that. i was naked when i saw my first cock
roach and i’ve never showered the same.
and when the rain starts, i will gently depress
my brakes and let the flow of traffic take me
over—i still recall skids on exit ramps full
of puddling potholes when i thought
i could drive like a god in the rain.