roadkill

The day gives in to the graces of the gray, green from the recent rain and awaiting the coming storm. The smoke reaches up and climbs the coils of burn and wind and offered breath, the fickle sky anchored to the engine planted firmly on the earth. The smoke strives and stalls, ambivalent to altar or entity, nodding at the offering as it goes to the ghost. The sky is all unsettled water colors and wanderlust, never the same sight twice. The crows and dogs add commentary as the world below slides by. I drop my cigar in my lap, hands slapping at my clothes stippled with ashes and embers. Everything has its price.

It’s the sort of story that goes unnoticed. It’s the sort of life that ends up under the wheels. Nothing planned, nothing personal— they just didn’t see you there. Everyone’s just racing to get to where they’re going. Everyone has a prize to eye. You wander the world of spent wishes. You wear down every path that you cross. Soon it’s only ghosts and premonitions, the flutter of the curtains, the hawk out on the fence. Soon it’s the light down the driveway, the light on down the hall you know that you turned off. We shelter in our stormy skulls, set our shadows loose upon the world. We were trained well to go with the motion, learned early our yes ands and to honor the misdirect. We only know how to give our all to the show.

The wind sweeps away the dregs of the day, the budding branches all astir, silhouettes slowly swaying to the tide of dusk. The last crows say their goodnights and disappear to the north. A slumped teen on a razor scooter stops to work his phone, white t-shirt and white earbuds a hapless apparition as the last of the light taps out. I make another offering to my ashtray as the song reaches its crescendo, I drink cooling coffee as the scooter kid glides and clatters round and round, the night just silly with it. Traffic hurries past, deadly to any inconvenience. The want opens up its maw and there goes the road. The endless tarmac a need tattooed into the skin of the restless world. A stitch, an itch, and only one thing certain in the wide open world.