Driving
after Elaine Terranova’s “Vertical” ~ Ella Pokrifka ‘17 ~ Why think of death? The possum on the road, poor thing, reminds you. But you were made upright so cars can see you, though this leaves you prey to lightning and the vertigo of honeysuckle. Gravity, in fact, plays its same trick on you as on the possum, letting your own weight hold you down. Still, your hands are free. They aren’t climbing the earth’s surface. You can catch a sneeze in a handkerchief. And you are high enough to be exposed to the percussion of birds. Also to the flutes they hold in their throats, the songbirds who don’t even know they are singing.
~4~