What Happens if You Never Stop
Drive far enough west at dusk and you outrun
darkness proving time is unnatural–
a Coriolis effect to fight chaos,
the way the planet curves to make you
trust you need somewhere to get to
like a retirement party or a third martini.
This marvel pelts you first in the eastern
part of Kansas with a rain of clichés—majestic,
sprawling, endless, scenic, uncluttered,
and grand—all hyperbole for flat.
Keep driving. Light will go on forever.
The sky opens and scoops the land up whole.
Where you are it is day, where you were
it remains the night before.
If you could keep driving far enough
darkness would disappear.
• • •
Jim McGarrah is the author of ten books. His poetry collections include Running the Voodoo Down which won an Elixir Press book award. Lamar University Press released A Balancing Act: New and Selected Poems in May of 2018. McGarrah’s memoir of war entitled A Temporary Sort of Peace (Indiana Historical Society Press, 2007) won the national Eric Hoffer Legacy Nonfiction Award. His poems and essays have been published in The American Journal of Poetry, Barcelona Review, Bayou Magazine, Cincinnati Review, Collateral, December, and North American Review, among others.