Fare

I left the party early, the way you do

when you realize you've been performing

for three hours and no one noticed the performance,

which is either a success or a failure

and you're too tired to work out which.

The driver had a photo on the dashboard—

two kids, maybe six and eight, laminated,

curling at one corner.

He never looked at it once in forty minutes.

Just drove. The highway lights kept pulling across it,

dragging a stripe over their faces

and releasing them. Over and over.

I thought: maybe that's what it looks like—

love that doesn't need to check.

You keep it where you can't quite see it

and still know it's there.

Or maybe the photo is from a different time

and looking is what he can't do anymore.

I tipped thirty percent.

I don't know why.

I walked inside and sat in the dark for a while.

Not long.