And Why Not: Road-trip

– And why not spring from the sheets, too early for fatigue

For a haphazard hustle of luggage,

'Til the muffled slide-shut of car doors

“Can't sleep”, but do, in a bundle of minutes,

After you've battled a tangle of seat belts

You watch a short-but-sweet show of night-lights in the window

When exhaust wraps you up

Who-knows-how-long now, jostling, puppeting sleep but awake –

Then it's a sun-shot in the eyes

When curiosity cracks them open

Where are we now?

Sound, too buttoned-up to question

Wake without rise in this moving hot-box

Cold glass rectangles display a cinematic scene,

Steel wool shrubs hook to the citrus-colored sand,

Endlessly peeled back, a shriveled tangerine

– Your ears always plug –

And you bake,

You bake, blissful

You bake,

And we wend –

Happy in our hot-box,

And why not?

Happy, that is.

By: Ellie Peek