Crawling on all fours, traffic drags its bleeding body forward.
Men with collars of lipstick tap tap tap their fingers against steering wheels.
Time slows, cars inch, passing hands find cigarettes, cigarettes find fire.
Tap ash tap finds tap pavement.
This is the unobserved hiatus of daily routines, the dreaded stretch of heaven that separates from and to.
During such moments of inertia
thoughts drift through open windows
forming a cloud for bargains, regrets, wishes, doubts, prayers, and curses to perform cotillion upon.
Faster, faster, so quickly now, oh, change partners, switch lanes, spin, oh baby spin, fasterfasterfaster, until differentiation is impossible, until drivers become one with this steel river, until minds make their essential switch that makes home a bearable punishment.
Someone has broken down.
Do Not Stop.
They are shunned from the sweeping mob of machinery. Necks swivel in uniform towards this abomination, how dare they, how DARE they outshine our misery. Perspiration works its way down backs and pools into leather cracks.
Will it ever end?
Do we want it to?
Finally,
regrettably,
the final exit, the last few feet of purgatory.
We descend into the next inferno where we leap through fiery hoops of interrogation—
yes no it was fine yes okay.
We are exhausted.
If only we would have stopped.
If only we would have hit the brakes and remained in our haven of anxiety and lust and confusion and endless searching.
Our love affair with traffic can only last so long.
So we make solemn promises to ourselves to appreciate tomorrow’s,
to run our fingers along the satin thighs of the freeway,
to plant a rubber kiss upon the ground.
How tap long tap until tap five?