Working the evening shift feels like it has a few unique benefits. Coming home late there are few cars on the road, and I see the world in all the quiet of its shadow side. At times I can almost imagine I’m the last person on earth. There’s lots of time for thinking. My mind wanders often, I’m so used to my route now. And the poems come, as thoughts or ideas, in bits and pieces coming together, waiting for me to get home and put them down.

night drive

through the window
a wet evening–
coolness on my skin,
soothing, soaking,
a quiet, damp delight

mind fast, racing
driving home,
heart pacing softly,
listens, slows,
easing its steady tune

bright white lights
extinguished,
gone with the night,
wiped clean away
by wind and rain

worn eyes clearing
taking a new shape,
erasing the false day;
mind newly fresh,
silent, moving on