Alone in the Car

Her hand rests on my leg
as I drive, and I feel
her gone—
not just going. I watch
the little tufts
of forest at the edge
of the highway
and already she’s just
an idea, face now
like a painting. Pale curve
of jawline from earlobe,
to mouth, the wet kiss
of memory. She reaches to touch
a button, her slim fingers
walking along the dash
to change the station.
I can’t imagine what I’d do
without her, so while
she’s here I practice.
We drive on, cross over
a wide bridge
into the next state.

Bobby Parrott's poems appear in Tilted House, RHINO, Phantom Kangaroo, Atticus Review, The Hopper, Rabid Oak, Collidescope, Neologism, and elsewhere. He sometimes gets the impression his poems are writing him as he dreams himself out of formlessness in the chartreuse meditation capsule known as Fort Collins, Colorado.