The Car's Gut

Lights flash behind,

red in the rearview, cold.

'License and registration,'

a story often told.

Fumble, click, it drops,

a plastic snow, a sigh.

Old gum, bent papers,

as seconds tick by.

The little light inside,

a weak, yellow glow,

on receipts from years past,

where do these things go?

Loose change, a dead pen,

a torn map, crumpled and dry.

All the forgotten pieces,

under a patient sky.

It’s a tiny history,

of where we’ve been and lost.

Just a mess of cheap paper,

at nobody’s cost.