Vanishing Point

Aug 12 2012

Prairie roads run straight

as lines on a map.

Seem to say

go as fast as you can

away.

You watch them mile after mile

getting steadily small,

until roads converge

and vanish.

The plume of dust

churned up

by sun-softened rubber

boils out behind,

disperses, hovering.

Then settles back,

until nothing’s left

but silence.

The vast prairie sky

they missed,

ducking under the hard-top, squeezing in.

Sun-drenched steel

too hot to touch.

Peering into the distance, could only glimpse

through the narrow slit

of windshield.

The glare of glass

the gooey thwapp

of bugs.

Don’t look back

the highway seems to say.

Too bad

they never looked up.