Riding Home by Margie Duncan

In the passenger seat,
held from the night
in the arms of Dad’s new Dodge,

I watch the electric blue hood
grow frost and turn
to powder gray.

The heater burns
the inside of my nose
and radiosongs tunnel

far inside my ears.
Tires whisper and tick
like white bread toasting.

What could happen, this night,
or any? The moon could lurch
above the horizon’s sweep

and swallow our headlights,
or we could skid on a shadow
into a ragged ditch, end up cold

and staring still, but those things
never happen. There’s only the car,
the universe outside, and no crossover.

Margie Duncan lives in NJ with her husband Brian, two tuxedo cats, and the ghosts of two dogs. When she is not looking out the window, she's hiking in the woods. Her poems have appeared in Thimble, Third Wednesday, Gyroscope Review, and Halfway Down the Stairs, among other places.