In the air by Chad Lahr (Imitation #3)

In the air, thinking of being back there

with you. I remember long drives across

our thoughts and state lines, yellow lines, and the

heavy eyes navigating through the night.

The gas gauge (don’t look) we can’t be far now

as we push our bodies, sleep creeping in.

Gas station coffee high fading too soon

because we aren’t there, we can’t be there yet

The blink. The Nod. The drifting of the van

across those yellow lines again, we fade.

Waking! Slap the face, turn up the music,

open a window to California.

Acknowledging the duty of driving

we ride on, free. We lived young and naïve

not thinking of the ones we left behind.

That van was our only world on I-5.

Quit my job to make a name for myself,

Childish dreams with grown up goals, careful son.

Don’t we all just want to be shooting stars?

One day even meteors hit the ground.

Work harder, gaze longer at those gas trails

through the window as phases pass me by.

Like this space between us, I’m not over.

We’re still connected through notes in the air.

Like rewriting a song that’s been erased,

it won’t ever sound quite the same again,

but something musical can be scratched in

the place where those words were once written down.

Those nights shaped me and though I want that back,

It shows me I’m in the error again.

___________________________________________

Have A Good One [In the error]

BY ANSELM BERRIGAN

In the error

                             thinking of non-intervention

                                 with you. A red sun

                                     (don’t look) pokes

                                through. Staging

                             development and the cutting

                        loose of its facile integrity

                             its disproportionate

                                      personal non-response.

                                  The wince. The shrug. The

                                      belated semi-acknowledgment

                                           of owning just

                                                enough to take part.

                                  In the era, thinking of you

                                      will quit my job

                                               in one year to get

                                         more done, work harder

                                                to insert myself into

                                            the fragile extension

                                      of space between us

                                             to get something done.

                                                 In the ear

                                                     thinking after you.