Overpass

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Dogs overflow the dark with O-shaped howls. Flat on the bed, naked under the fan, no one notices us, our complex at 4:23 under the I-10 overpass. Stranded in the groin of the lot.

Through the ceiling the highway's concrete shakes, crumbles the brittle edges of adulthood. The room quivers, irregular, from rigs humming above, cars squealing past
with names of endangered species cut into their sides, chased by cops whose gray bodies
slip along in smog-stained lines, craving speed like oversized sharks rippling night
to stay alive, to keep breathing. A gunshot sends me to my feet. Pace, sweat, surrender.

Kept awake by the thought Can't sleep, she's flopped beside me, bed tossing beneath her.
I'm thinking she's a rotting sheaf of sea oats, a dog kicking up peat bogs, a wilted bouquet strangled by cellophane.

This state is after fourteen states, nine fill-ups, two thousand miles of asphalt put behind us, pelts of retread or roadkill -- we couldn't tell which -- flung to the breakdown lane, writhing head to toe. Sure, this is our destination. Our bags and boxes crushed, spilling open. We are not here.

5:54. The morning drags itself up slowly, red from indigo, shedding stars up the stairs.
Grasping a message we can't, fireflies know when to let their cores melt down, cicadas stop ringing their one thousand unanswered phones. The window that whines
to be opened, stays shut.

We are flat. Something's running through us, diesel trucks, thieves, heat. Something's falling from the railing of the overpass, a couch forgetting its fear of heights, throwing itself to the sun at thirty-two feet per second. A sacrifice.

The day yawns wide as a dog's red mouth.

Nth Position
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