Crash Course

© Beth Roberts

Something to do with time and space, slip in the warp, halt in the tick, but it feels like more than lack, doesn't it, feels like taking time straight. I've seen lightning illuminate night's convexo-concave all night, heavy with summer heat and with edges burning take the sky beyond its perimeter, while along the highway's slow declination the arrow of the air fell far. But in the world there are hard and fast rules concerning boundaries. So far I've had bad pain, needed drink, and made myself hungry for looks. And it may be vanity, finally, that claims the vehicle. But where was my head that afternoon, with children at every window? And the time before that? Time before that? . . . so heavy in thought that the body blew off or weightless with thought while the body stayed, the blind body, traffic on traffic, seducing a balance that held its sway with a mind on you till traffic snapped and got away. Again the baby cries, a little unhurt, unwilling arena for memory. Again some mechanism turns over