Mirror NorthWest

Michael Spence

INTERSTATE

Zagging between the semis, cars, and vans
Without a turn signal, he switches lanes
The second he's entered one as if to throw
A demon off his scent. But who could follow
His swerving 4 x 4? What does he flee?
He drives as if distance were the enemy,
His wake a swirling cloak of blue-gray smoke:
The ghost of where he used to be. Rock
Blasts from his cab as though a band he's kidnapped
Is wailing for release. The drivers trapped
By speed and other limits--they're only slaves.
To part this sea of obstacles, he waves
The wand of his longest finger, conjuring
Their anger: the elixir that makes him young.

ADDENDUM TO THE SAFETY OFFICER'S ACCOUNT

When the spanwire
Snapped like a line mooring Seaman Holt
To this world, the severing released a flood
Of paper from his body. I had to fill
Every sheet with words.

A month washed by--
I'd written the letter to his family,
The accident report, the memoranda
To the various departments that had fed
And clothed and paid him, my journal entry.
His face began to lose its puzzled look,
Dissolving in the darkness of my thoughts.

The Shore Patrol had fished him out of bars,
Disorderly and drunk; he'd been written up
For ragged dungarees, skipping watch
On the quarterdeck and unrep duties
On fueling details. His final day, though,
He was on that rig.

And then Personnel
Called for a Terminal Evaluation.
In every category on that form--
Skills, discipline, personal appearance--
I wrote a 4.0. The yeoman typed
From this a "smooth eval" which I proofread:
The comma at its end I whited out
To a period.

CONTRIBUTOR

Michael Spence was an officer in the navy aboard an aircraft carrier. He has been driving public-transit buses in the Seattle area for twenty years. The poems was previously published in The New Republic. Other work of his has appeared recently in The Antioch Review, The North American Review, and Southern Humanities Review. His latest book is Adam Chooses (Rose Alley Press).