Sunday, December 15th, 2024, 3:45 a.m.

 

There is no attempt to sleep

I lay in the dark, hopeless and miserable,

completely clothed on a bed too big for me

 

A beaming of light through the window

The room is again given shape through the mouth of darkness

(interrupted in swallowing)

 

I’m roused to the glass

I catch the tail end of a steel rectangle

floating down a concrete road

 

A trail of orange and red burns into my eyes

left behind where there is no truck

and no driver

 

(The trapped operator of a trapped starship

Destined to fly

Highwaybound)

 

Apathy keeps me at the window

Work keeps the drivers at the road

More trucks in the coming moments

 

More orange

More red

More white beams of straight-ahead goings

More drivers on more road

 

Oh, Truck Driver

Aren’t you lonelier than I am?

More tired?

More restless?

All the same, confined with me?

 

Aren’t you colder than I?

More aged?

More traveled?

Or do you only see the perimeter of a rest stop?

 

Truck Driver! 

My American folk hero… faceless

Great operator of cold horses and transporter of dreams

Not you: the dreamer

You: the sandman

Necessary and veiled by night

 

Gear-shifting and wheel-turning

Face drooping and fast-wrinkling

Hair thinning and eyes fading

Thoughts numb and voice diminished

 

Nomadic road-freak!

What home waits for you?

What dwelling will not be just another stop on your way?

How soon will you turn the key again?

 

Oh, Truck Driver

Almost autonomous

and very nearly real for a moment

 

By eight o’clock, the darkness will have regurgitated me

(leaving on an empty stomach),

the highway will be busier,

and I will still be sleeping

 

Sunday, December 15th, 2024, 4:42 a.m