the rearview mirror
suspends my spectral
face over receding tree lines,
bifurcates metallic siding

headlights wink above grinning grills
and we freight forwards
for fear, for beauty
for maximum efficiency

the dash becomes my ottomon
and my shoed feet
obscure the flicks of white paint
passing with the seconds
piled like roadside rubble,
the rawest mountain of the landscape

its heaps of grey
unshared moments separate
us like the snake of a line
between one black dot,
me, to one black dot,
you, superimposed over
the sad pastels of
amateur cartography

bridge ices before road
and the speed is limited
to 55,
the sun licks my ankles
and the engine sings me to sleep

I will wake up in the
sepia dim of a tunnel
that slices through a countryside
I didn't miss,
and didn't miss me.