There are too many nights in a lifetime—
hours spent sleeping through the story
between birth and death.

The images are simple:
an empty highway, blue under midnight;
the huddled peaks of spruce that line the background.

Now and then, headlights ghost past.
I have time to reflect
in the interim silence in the car with my family.

Nearly all of them
are fast asleep.  There are too many nights in a lifetime—
so many moments of calm that I forget.

Years of life full with nights roll by, headlights shining;
there’s peace in
the steady beam of headlights, streaming through the dark.

Sparse snowflakes fall through the path of light
which leads a car
around a curve in the road before us.

The wind and silence on the road and in the car
dissolve into my body like a liquor—
I am calm.

The car ahead rounded its turn,
bearing down the highway,
its headlights fell across our windshield—

I forgot the events of my lifetime, and
felt no urge to think.
I flinched with a twitch before the impact.