In Traffic

Even if the highway had been moved to dance,

the stalled traffic, stuck in a line,

choreographed into something interesting—

Chevettes flying sideways in a field,

or up, up into a cloudless sky

where so much space cries out for movement—

still the Real would be on to us again

on this narrow trap of a road adorned with

a diner, a garage, and a nursery,

its trees struggling to produce more leaves.

How gradual spring is here! How impatient

all of us are to be getting home,

as if home were some sort of transfigured instant.

We’re stymied, as usual, by the unknown—

a broken-down truck up ahead, an accident,

a Harvester dragging gigantic claws

too wide for one lane, or an animal

refusing to budge—and we begin to wonder

who we all are: the anonymous

taking on interest, the way a tree

stands out suddenly, exempt from its species.

Nothing is really dancing except

an insect or two, whose lives will be smashed

against a windshield once we begin

to move, which we’re beginning to do;

a truck full of trees is carting its garden

away toward somebody’s landscaped Eden,

and we’re picking up speed, single file,

driving past ponds displaying their steadfast

green, through towns too pretty to be.