MATT THOMAS

King of the Road

Newborn shadows jump from the reaching cedars
as the truck passes what do you see?
Anything you can imagine
No cure, yet the sun rises beneath pond ice,
above, mallards become smoke.

Dreams are mud on the belly of the pony.

A squat business park slinks by
pulling an empty parking lot behind it.
Waking up every day a person, what to do?
Stillness is death.

Halogen sunrise, flashing red beside the road
a sailor’s delight, sirens gawked, lip read
from a noise canceled cabin and following seas
home,

mail dropped onto the kitchen table, shoes removed;
nothing required between your energies and this floor,
the road of your people,
spooned miles counted in dog nail clicks,
the chain of events.

Cruising that loop,

trying to out-pace the jacked up, bored out,
candy apple dignities stroking and roaring,
one arm draped on the wheel as if you don’t care

and the other

shawling the softening shoulder of love
while the now aged shadows climb back into the trees
to sleep above their rowdy wake.