John Grey

DRIVING

Mile after mile and then another mile,

not linear, but piled atop each other,

distance heavy, stifling, many men

cramped in the back of a truck

breathe the bump of wheels,

the muggy air of gasoline.

Here, between past and future,

a ragtag vehicle rattles

across a border's backwater,

along a dirt track,

through flameless July fire.

Barely a sound from within.

Every stop could be the patrol,

each sudden burst of speed,

a fruitless getaway.

Deep in the dark,

wills saturate, wilt,

lungs gasp as even oxygen

is poverty now.

Five hundred miles

of Texas plains,

cattle graze

like wind on faces,

oil derricks lance

the sky, that blue pin cushion

of space and heat and wealth.

A straight, flat highway

fuses distance to the sameness,

Air recoils before

unwitting speed,

the diesel cough of passing trucks.

But drenching sunset

claims the frame for beauty

Cars don head-lamp camouflage.

Oncoming dark

makes fireflies of us all.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in Schuylkill Valley Journal, CapeRock and Columbia Review with work upcoming in Louisiana Review, Poem and Spoon River Poetry Review.