Belleville Bound
from Ohio to New Jersey

Dayton settles into sleep, reflected
in my rearview, dim
lights winking off.
Orange shadows stretch down alleys and
filter through curtains.
I race the moon to the horizon.

The white and yellow highway lines flicker
past me, blurring and fading around the folds
of the endless foothills.
Heather gray touches blue-black sky as
the world yawns awake.

Cities jut from the earth and reach
steel arms to the sun while the morning
steeps into littered river banks. McGuire
whistles by, an ink blot
in the margin of my passage.
I’m in the heart of it now.