VASTNESS IN DARKNESS

on the highway at 3 a.m. . . . wet pavement, tires a little slippery in the drizzle . . . an intense sense of smallness within something vast . . . perhaps the beginning of a thought . . . lightning almost floats in the air, along the synapses on the horizon . . .

I am tired . . .the radio plays loud rock n roll . . . helps me stay awake . . . my mind wanders . . . the music reminds me of a young woman I know who wants to be a rock star . . . she pushes, she smiles, radiates heat . . . now she has lost almost everything but the lightning on her own horizon, and a handful of people I hope are her friends . . . when I saw her a week ago, she was almost seven months pregnant . . . no responsible father . . . how she craved a comforting shoulder, how she clung to me for an evening . . .

she pushes my mind . . . briefly, I see the notion of a hitchhiker on the edge of the highway . . . quickly gone at 75 mph . . . Jim Morrison and the Doors urge us to break on through to the other side . . . I imagine she will deliver the daylight . . . that she smiles and means it . . . this vastness is real . . .

I imagine reality as beads of water dancing on a hot griddle, sizzling until it’s gone . . .

IN THOUGHT

when the universe exploded,
time felt useless and lonely, and remained


like a sadness forever
expressed in the silence
between two clean, high piano notes
in a star-lit desert night