All day I have been watching cars cut
Short my dull route through the
Throat of my city. I miss
One turn, two, end up by the diner, which I
Enter why
Not? While I am eating my eggs Elvis
Moans a classic and through the slow
Whirlpool of restaurant blur cuts
A glint from my waitress’s eye, nostalgia
For a time unknown, sufficient for most
Of us, in its title of ‘not now’—
Neon signs hover in the evening blue
Chipotle, Verizon, Subaru
Cast a galactic glow on the night—
Sitting dumbly at the optometrist’s office
I let him drop tropicamide on my naked
Eyes, put my chin to a binocular machine.
My eyes aglow, rendering a red
Farmhouse set on a slab of green,
Crowned by cloudless blue, tiny
Lucid planet where nothing ever happens.
Uniformly over the whole cityscape
Ordinary cars ache creepingly home
Men, hunched, silent, great
Legion fighting to disappear
Into a constellation of door frames.
Amanda Pruett is a Phoenix-based teacher and writer. Their writing has been featured in Convergence, The State Press, and PubLab. Amanda is Editor in Chief of The Cactus Wren Review, a Phoenix-based literary magazine. They love cartoons, their dog Charles, and their 4th grade students’ haikus.