The Longest Drive (first published in Birmingham Arts Journal)
A path that has no other light but the coiled spring inside of us.
Sometime ago, we became such a light. The car under our seated forms supplied the casing that housed an independent battery, keeping our momentum constant but slow-burning!
With the cabin lights on, we were a roving lantern. We were an arching beacon, going forward and onward. We were snapping our fingers then. When. Now. Suddenly. A madman jumped in front of us. We veered off and went over a cliff and into a starry night.
For a moment, we became part of the greater light, another pinprick in the brilliant sky. In that moment, we didn’t descend. We didn’t say a thing, letting the radio go.
We broke the sound barrier. Our speed melted the tuning knobs. We lived in that car and fell into the celestial groups that rose in key to our own climb.
Until the canyons came up to curtain all windows, to tile all the doors.