To Get There

by Kelsey Bryan-Zwick

empty coffee cups and road maps sprawled on
passenger’s seat, the highway always stinks like crushed
cans, like bumper car collision, or bowling ball barreling
towards stalled pins, gutters busting with rubber detritus
especially the grapevine, especially at night
when the big rigs appear as dinosaurs with jowls
honking, or headlights, or the two sides of a trash
compactor about to merge simultaneous into your lane
an unlit cigarette clenched between your teeth, the dent
the impress, the spur, the music loud enough to feel like
espresso, to mock the tumult of seventy miles an hour
whizzing by, all the lights on the horizon blinking
office building windows, wink like they’re in on the joke
sky-scrapping giants ready to topple down to earth, this is
when the big one quakes, as you arc towards the clouds
on overpass the car jumps like a cow over the moon
taking the whimsical detour of rainbows