TUESDAY TIME

A northern highway spills south
Like a black tongue down the mountain,
Clouds of steel hover low like dirigibles of old,
And I am absurdly driving at a stop.
I will not make it on time
Repeats in a perpetual loop,
I realize time means nothing and everything —
Invisible and oppressive, alluring and impersonal.
To my right a rapid skeleton of apartments
Is being sutured and sewn together
By reflective men in rock-hard white helmets.
A ridiculous crane hilariously hurls
Life-ending weight rapidly, swinging acrobatics
Above our jammed, highway heads.
I gaze down this line of immobilized cars
Driven by frenzied people in a hurry,
Trying to be on time,
Trapped in time already past.
And the crane swivels again.

Dylan Webster lives and writes in the sweltering heat of Phoenix, Arizona. He is the author of the poetry collection Dislocated (Quillkeepers Press, 2022). His poetry and fiction have appeared in The Amethyst Review, The Cannon’s Mouth, The Dillydoun Review, and The Chamber Magazine.