For 6 years I didn’t own a car.
Then I bought a Jeep Cherokee.
It got 11 miles to the gallon.
As my friend Cameron said
when he took the job
at the missile factory
“I’m part of the problem now!”
Yet how quickly I settled
into driving again,
humming along
to Gnarls Barkley
on the 44-mile commute.
How the oil refineries
of North Salt Lake
glowed like enchanted castles
on the way home at night.
How snow packs formed
on the undercarriages
of the cars, then fell off
in blackened chunks
that dotted the highway
like sleeping birds.
How I imagined those birds
waking up, shaking the snow
from their feathers,
taking off for someplace else.
Dawn Corrigan's poetry and prose have appeared in a number of print and online journals, most recently at DIALOGIST, So to Speak, and Digital Americana.