Now, when we should pull over and sleep

by Tyler Kline

Now, when we should pull over and sleep
my friend Jeff speaks up
and asks if we’ve heard the celestial gossip
that one day all the stars will die like a final breath to birthday candles,
all while Dire Straits grinds their way toward us
from the cave of ancient car speakers.

Maybe it’s just the distance that hides this issue from thought.
Or the fact that we won’t be alive to rattle bottles of aspirin dry
and gulp down cases of rationed water,
universally hungover from a Gatsby-themed end-of-the-world blowout.
– Our Burning Man
will be the vibrant star that cracks open the sky –
now rising in the rearview mirror
lighting a field of extinguished candles and singing:
             sometimes you’re the windshield
             sometimes you’re the bug.

So tonight’s sobriety of a cracked window and a good clean voice
will not make all the difference
when it comes time to lock hands and close eyes.
Instead of worrying, I accept it
 – fear.
Peacefully sedated,
like the scarecrow to the left of us.

Doghood

by Tyler Kline

The curve of the path straightens out
then bends back like an anxious tail –
ahead,              man and woman are walked by dog.

The pink, wet pelt of his tongue
arched outward, slurping air
joined by a pallor of white teeth.
Again, I begin wishing –

the wish that tells my shrink more than descriptions can –

for someone to please
just throw me a gnarled branch to retrieve

or spill a little beer at a campsite and let me lick it off leaves –

then praise me after I’ve run planes to LaGuardia and back
and end the day by bringing in broken creatures with jaws lined red.

Before the sun stretches back, my canine spirit-journey comes full circle –
while Rangers perform their rounds
the couple opens their car doors
in jumps dog – with a belly full of creek water
and insects crushed under paws – stealing shotgun

and resting his head out the window like a spent comma.

Before I get home, making sure no cars are in sight,
I try too –
balancing my head out with one eye to the road
and the other left free to wander –

spread my face wide and think,          maybe I’ve found the secret,
but the moment stops as quickly as it began:

a fork in the road springs up
and I duck back in to steady the wheel.