from a work in progress: “process, not a journey” (34)

as i drive to work each day

at eighty miles per hour i slip

between concrete meridians

and rattling White Freight Liners

the eighteen wheelers heave

and pitch in the next lane

like fat cattlemen at an auction

on the radio news of war

and poverty of graft and greed

play out like melodramas

without an easy denouement

the girl remains on the tracks

the train bears down the villian

laughs world without end

among the grass beside the road

my ghosts slowly sing in whispers

this is the time we have become

this is our time to overcome

(March 4, 2020)