My hand is spectral,
blue in the dashboard

lights, yellow lines recede
to the black.

Behind
red.

Midnight, I’m driving.
Passenger window
partly cracked,

ricochet breezes.

Decades to travel
still.

I keep right,
happy to be
slow.

AM radio,
dead disk jockeys
haunt the airwaves,

station jingles lilt and fade,
echo.

I pray I don’t tire;
straightaways.

I steer at the curve’s apex,
ahead of the headlights,
hyper-vigilant,

I don’t
foresee

you, a child,
in misty high beams,

before
impact.

I open all the windows,
blast the heat; cruise
control.

© Carlos Chagall, 2013