Sometimes

When it really comes down

and the streets shine black,

I sit in traffic and watch the droplets

Descend the windshield.

they distort the red light

that won’t turn green.

Sometimes I let the drops settle,

preferring to leave them alone

as I relax in my seat

while the winds pick up

and they crawl back

to the roof of the car.

Lights cut through

the watery sheet

on my windshield,

distorted.

And for this moment,

I’m separated from the street,

the cars, and the signs I think I see,

flashing.

My eyes are stuck

in this crawling watercolor,

melting with every mile.

PAX

The dingy lights of the sign cut through the mist.
The illuminated word was important,
or it must have been.

Important enough for someone
to put it on a sign, and electrify it.

But now half the bulbs are fading.
More than a few letters are dead,
and what was once so important
is now something else.

The letters still alive are three
P, A, X. In that order.

And we can only hope
those three stay alive

Wide Open

I wish I could still doze off
on those yard sale couches
that somehow never got moldy
or rotten
or old.

We could sit through the night
Each in our own armchair,
And watch the passage of time
As our thoughts and words
Flooded the atmosphere

Somehow we woke
Without bugs in our moths
Or leaves in our hair,
and I don’t remember the cold.

like logs in the fire,
We would light into flames
And then slowly fizzle into sleep
U nder the stars and the trees.