Twenty Years on the Way Home
s.r. laclaire
We were driving, the two of us.
He was babbling about something
and I was staring straight
into the fog watching yellow
lines, headlights, and the
shadows changing their shape.
slow-fast-under-gone.
My head was nodding inside
the car, but the rest of me
was hanging out on side streets
swinging from trees, running
fast, kicking crushed cans
and fallen pine cones.
We passed Fryer Street.
The solemn, gray walls took
shape, slowing my running.
I became wrapped up in twenty
years of solitude, before
he swerved his Buick
back into his lane after
lighting a smoke.
The night sky stretched out
the last bit of blue, and I felt
my head nodding slightly crooked now.
My stained teeth were showing through
an image of a plastered on smile.
