Midnight. Through the car window,
tail lights flare like matches struck against
the pane’s stained grit.
Each lone light: the collective plural
of the many directions heading
for home. The speed of the highway
drives the rate of your heart.
Accelerate slowly. Stars are headlights
parked far back in dim vacant lots
of old drive-in movies
where clouds drift like smoke from
James Dean’s crash. Time holds us the way
hours hold time. The full moon:
a hubcap wedged in the sky.
— from Juniper Volume 6, Issue 2