The Rite (II/III)
Morning
ascended – we climbed
in the minivan
to open shop,
as you, and she,
had done for years
without lapse.
I had coiled
the night
in angst –
dreading the future I extruded.
I peered beyond the car glass toward the flutters of early light,
seeking to glimpse the new fate –
so I might outwit it,
or outrun it.
My reflection
floated in
the convex sheet
amid the flickering stream of suburban hollow –
inert sprawl of nuclear ambition,
begrudged clusters of humans
in flight from humans;
each house a sterile cliché –
islet amidst exquisite
moat of grass,
sheathed with insecticide.
Your voices
insinuated like distant pellets in reluctant skirmish –
wafts of muffled lightning
intimating debt woes,
blame and disavowal,
clannad abasement,
fear of failure.
Suddenly, with
two grunts of the motor,
you pitched the Safari
into the open lot of Shop Rite to attend the battle in earnest.
First,
only reiterations –
volleyed over a score of
fervid gestures.
Then,
resolutely,
it came
like
a
waning
melancholic
measure –
you proffered severance.
