in Particular
The tank was three-quarters full.
The evening was ready to submit
to something other than the apartment,
its ceiling,
its news feed.
So I drove the long way—
past the grocery store,
past the agreed social contract of the strip
where I might be recognized
by someone who requires a performance I’ve not sized
for tonight.
The warm smile.
The current-with-my-own-life conversation.
The thirty-second accounting of a self
still in formation.
I drove the long way.
Drove the whole perimeter twice.
Somewhere past the overpass
I had the whole thing scripted—
built and real,
the tone and timing first-class,
the honest sentence practiced for the windshield,
for the dark interior of the car
where the yield of the actual costs nothing,
where words go out
into the headliner, the upholstery,
without the doubt of being heard.
I had it past the underpass.
I had it clear.
The exit came up.
I let it pass.
Driving nowhere exactly.
Still going.
Still here.
Came home when the tank said low.
Sat in the driveway
watching the slow tick
of the cooling engine
count down to the quiet
of the neighborhood at this hour—
its gentle riot of porch lights
and the distant.
Nothing required.
No destination reached.
No item cleared.
Retired for the night into the house
without the thing resolved.
Driving nowhere exactly.
Not dissolved.