Sometimes when I drive down
322 or 100 or 113 or I-76,
I get stuck in traffic.
I drum my fingers on my steering wheel
and stare into the other cars
through my window.

Where are you headed,
stranger?

Each taillight flashing
in the dark
as they stop, go,
another story.

And sometimes, when I’m returning
home by plane at night,
I look down, and wonder
how on Earth there could be so
many people
I don’t know.
How many of their life stories
have been heard?
(I get a headache at that point,
and take a pill).

And at the end of the day,
they are nothing more
than glints of light
flickering like the candles
on a birthday cake,
and I am still in
the tiny bird-like machine
that children point up
to
in wonder.