For how many nights have I slept in this car,
the dog behind the wheel,
myself crooked
across the back seat?
Unceasingly, passing headlights attack
the darkness,
and my sleep wavers like water
with the traffic’s tides.
I tell myself I couldn’t rest in a bed
surrounded by softly exhaling neighbors
asleep in their own houses,
faces lit by their radio clocks.
But sometimes a semi refusing to change lanes
rocks the car, and in my sleep I think
I’m still traveling:
the dog driving, I ride.
And not waking, I worry I’m turning too strange
to go home,
and an awful panic kicks in my chest
like an unstunned rabbit
in a pillow case.
