Shoulder

The fridge has found a certain drone,

a steady hum of metal and bone.

When the power cut and the kitchen went black,

the quiet brought the highway back.

The smell of the floor mats, the salt and the grit.

The way we would lean and the way we would sit.

The orange light swept like a hand on a clock

across his old sweater, the back of his neck.

I was a stowaway, watching the miles

unroll in the dark through the window-glass aisles.

We were going somewhere I can’t quite recall,

past the gas stations and the nothing at all.