Exit Strategy

 

Ahead, the muscular arms of the valley

threaten to close over, hack the daylight,

impose a night sky cleansed of stars.

 

I poured myself, and everything I think of

as everything, into the back of the car,

leaving more space than when I began,

 

yet still I’m weighted down, by a tombstone

on my shoulder, a last supper of cold soil

digesting inside. The road begins to climb.

 

I stumble along at the speed of darkness.

Behind me, you and someone’s army are

pasting my likeness onto every blank wall.

 

 

first published in Soft Cartel, 2018