She gazes over her shoulder once too often,
catching her reflection in the rear-view mirror,
frightening.
And she can’t decide if she, herself is the cause of the unrest
or if it’s simply her-in-present-time that maddens.
Nevertheless she drives, and drives often,
trying to escape the past, the future,
the feeling that somehow memories aren’t temporary;
that they will not succeed in overwhelming
the only stability she knows:
that of a mind fixated on rote lines
and what science calls facts
and they keep her safe,
or so she thinks;
and they keep her sane,
or what passes as lucid
and she prays to a God she no longer believes in
but the alternative is, like the image in the mirror,
far too unabridged to contemplate.
~ bj