Poem

In Transit

/ /

Just after three in the afternoon, and car after car, pickup by pickup,

the end of a factory shift merges into the traffic, like teeth on one side

of a long zipper fitting themselves into the teeth on the other, while an

incoming passenger flight, low to the ground, casts a brief, howling

shadow over the highway, picking out only one car from the others,

flying a flicker of dusk through the driver’s side window, out

through the passenger side, a dusty blue Chevy Camaro with no plates,

and a hand-lettered sign duct-taped in the rear window: IN TRANSIT,

the driver, too briefly brushed by the breath of the shadow to feel it,

drapes a wrist over the wheel, a lit cigarette in her fingers, leans over

to peer in the mirror, then steps on it, fitting herself into her place in it all.