Driving home from work tonight
on half-constructed roads, wet
with already-drying rain, ahead
of me a brown truck darts through
two busy lanes to get on his way.
How deerlike, I think, and
nothing more of it, until I’m
at a stoplight with unusual traffic,
and people congregate on sidewalks,
where there was recently emptiness,
a dread in the air, like construction
on these familiar streets that started
happening just outside of awareness.
A blue basketball rolls briskly in front
of my car, and two boys scream in
the silence of my Spotify, and I
wonder if I should pull over to
return the ball safely but I just drive
by and glance into the rearview mirror,
where one of them sprints from his yard
to his neighbor’s, through the converging
traffic, and I just try not to think
about it as I round the corner.
(originally published in Thirteen Myna Birds, Winter 2022)