Cars dart like minnows,
flashing from lane to lane
through the spillway of gray
exhaust from the solid dam of trucks
lining the two right lanes.

Somewhere past the Henry County line
my passengers fall asleep,
drawn into dreams by the
road’s ebb and flow.

Alone with my thoughts,
lulled by the road’s hum,
I follow the dark ribbon
etched black between the green trees.
Breathless blue translucence hovers and descends,
then lifts away my charred, exhausted brain.
It hangs in the sky, a pale Gordian knot,
a convoluted moon that follows me,
always on my left, a sinister friend.

Mindless, I drive, one with the traffic as it flows and darts
like a  school of fish, swoops and dips and rearranges itself
like a flock of birds in flight, soars and loops and cascades
like notes falling from a symphony,
all in accord.

Adroitly, I steer the clumsy Ford Econoline
to the Clairmont Road exit on the right,
and the lumpy, irregular orb,
now ridiculously clean, like a
fresh head of cauliflower,
descends and settles back into my skull.