Joseph Hallenbeck
March 10, 2011

A.M.

Filed under: Fiction

The blazing orb had long fled the western skyline.
And on the fifteenth hour of a run across the Midwest
with only headlights to cut a tunnel through the void,
I swam, like a smelt amongst trout,
down the asphalt American stream.

Careless of me,
the giants loomed from the night-fog,
carrying their hidden cargo,
to destinations unknown.

I sat in my shell,
protected from the cold exterior,
the flaying winds,
and the night sounds.
In that rattling chamber
I rocketed across the land-locked interior.

The AM stations guided my way.
The mouth of the radio spoke
the world of conspiracy theorists, alien abductees.
The everyday madness of this nation spread
out before me.

The sun raced to meet me on the eastern shore
and even the freaks must sleep.
Not I.

The VLP Magazine 2010 A Fortune Up In Flames

"A.M." by Joseph Hallenbeck is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.