driving down the interstate,
I’ve seen this woman three times.
The tired eyes, the old skin
wrapped loosely about a tired old face.
in a Cherokee SUV,
a truck
and a gray sedan,
There’s that woman again.
Weariness is the old mousey brown
cloaking her head.
stringy, graying, thinning.
Hardship has thinned her out, like soup.
Hopelessness!
The steady right foot
presses her onward
into a cold-pressed sky.
a dull, strictly painted landscape
whisses by, stonelike and hollow.
Wheels turn to a deathly cold oblivion.
An indifference to the regret.
a Transfixed Future,
bleak eyes without light,
without fear, without direction,
She continues driving forward.