Commuter's Log

Eighty miles of fog and moonlight,

headlights and jazz, the radio fading

each mile from Omaha. Enough times

down the route and one discovers

the last secrets the land offers:

copse of maple along the river bottom,

gravestones loose in the collapsing

lip of a bluff, town lights marking

the platte of Nebraska City

pinched between two hills.

Late enough, and one can nearly

decipher the script of highway cracks

brought forth by recent rain,

subtext weathered into highway signs.

I reach out through the headlights,

concentration centered on that faint code

singing through the wheel:

radio waves,

vibration, lights off fog, mirrors,

the wind south-southwest. I am alone

and tired, with nothing between me

and this night racing in from everywhere.