Fitzgerald wrote
of a faint green light
(and so many other things too)
"So we beat on, boats against the current, ceaselessly into the past."

Am I beating on, now? Face pressed
against the cold window,
I feel the wheels beneath me
rolling and rolling
slapping against the pavement,
but that's not me.
That's just the minivan- at most
the person
holding the wheel and pressing the pedal.

They beat on,
petals of a different sort,
elephantine limbs
rotating
rolling like the wheels of the car,
but moving in
a different fashion entirely.

The red lights
      blink
in unison
on
            and off
as each massive
wing crests
and then descends again.

You can't see them
but I know they're there
from the fraction of a shadow
that falls over each
red light.

We're moving too, though
maybe not like Fitzgerald wrote.
This minivan, this minivan
is moving forward
with the current
and the longer I spend
thinking about it,
face against this cold window,
I know I'm
moving forward too.