Tie Down

The sky is the color of a wet slate roof

and the highway has started to blur.

I’m stuck behind thirty tons of proof

that the wind is a violent, desperate stir.

The yellow tarp on the flatbed snapped like a bone,

each hit like a gunshot against the steel.

I can’t pull over or be left alone

with the way this steering wheel feels.

I watched the iron chains bite into the pine,

vibrating so fast they looked like a gray hum.

Everything is held by a rusted, thin line

waiting for the worst of the rain to come.