TO PEOPLE SITTING MOTIONLESS IN THEIR VEHICLES WHEREVER I GO
You are old
young
of indeterminate age,
beige
black
pinkish
gray
you are wearing
not wearing
a cap backward
or straight
you have just begun
to partake of
a cigarette
a Coke
a beer
your dog is
or is not
with you
the window is up
the window is down
the car or truck is
or is not
duct-taped together;
only one element
remains perfectly
consistent—
your fixed
expressionless gaze.
Do you commune
silently together
across the miles
like the unborn
from womb to womb,
while you wait
to be delivered
into some new
and floating universe?
Or maybe your art
is precisely the opposite
of waiting;
it never began
because it will never end
because you are by nature
anti-narrative.
Or are these driver’s seats
your work stations,
your stillness
the apogee of speed,
a feat that required
years of comprehensive training
in wrecks on cement blocks,
so that now,
after hours,
you can steer your houses
across acre upon acre
of neighborhood lawns?
