In the rush hour at dusk, dim headlamps
cut brighter paths; cars resign their shapes
to twilight-unraveling identities. And hovering
overhead, the landing beams of the jet
bow down against the swallowed mountains, arch
landward, burn faintly out of the gray plane of sky.
They know which way means bending to inertia, which
to a sundered state of travel. This steering column
yields to the shepherding of tired trucks, the abulia
of radial tires etching pavement. The planet
brakes; every driver turns its maps
and latitudes to be where it cannot arrive
for miles of stops and starts; the body,
so willing to be proxied by the landscape,
urging homeward to seek the sure and fixed
point of its origin, and, in so doing, earn
what others have earned, stretching itself
across the long meridian of rest.

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Karl Sherlock’s writing appears (or is forthcoming) in After Happy Hour, Assaracus, Broken Lens, Cream City Review, Dickinson Review, James White Review, Lime Hawk, Matador, Mollyhouse, The Radvocate, Science Write Now, Stoneboat, Tinge, Wordgathering, the DisLit anthology The Ending Hasn’t Happened Yet, and others. A 2014 Sundress Publications "Best of the Net" finalist for his memoir about marrying a conversion therapy torture survivor, Karl lives in El Cajon, California, where he teaches poetry writing and co-coordinates a local college Creative Writing Program. At home, he takes care of his Lesser Jardines parrot, Bubo, and his critically ill husband, Max.

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