Linda

    I am a time-island 
 in my speeding capsule of steel and glass,
the glazed skies are vaguely sinister 
 in a layered, silvered haze.
    
  Isolated among streams of strangers 
intent on destinations alongside freeways 
 pressed into fissured plates, 
I absently tuck away a tendril of escaping gray, 
reach for water plasticated slick with condensation. 
   On the sun-mottled dashboard, 
page corners curl in scribbles paused overnight 
between Cerrito’s and South-East. 
 Already, the faces are blurring into repetition, 
faded traders, the nod-and-smile exchanges.
 Homeward cacti prickle the space behind me,
sway to the rumble of ribbon-stitched county lines. 
     
   My fluttered origami thoughts dance unfolded 
in patterns encircling mosaic wisdom 
 and ladders of blank perspective.
   The earth rotates, I breathe.