Sunday morning, 5am, 1986

Sunday morning, 5am, 1986

He woke us to stumble to the truck, or he didn’t.
He carried us, blanket swaddled, our limbs loose,
all elbows, all bones and lolling heads. He lay us
against one another in the backseat. No matter

how gently we were left there, the growl and smog
of the diesel engine would wake us, send us to look
out the back window. We could see in that orange-
blue light
how the truck, how the boat hitched behind it how the two of us
and our father sitting in the front seat
were all standing still. How the signs shot past us,
how houses ambled. Barns, trees, animals,
joggers: all of these passed at variant rates.

We made a game of counting the seconds between
power-line posts mailboxeslawnstatues culverts
we charted their velocities. The sun would rise

changing the game’s electricity into a lullaby,
and as we slept, faces hot, sweating, we began to move
and the world would stand still again.