by LJ Frank
En route west beyond the city traffic and the vast billowy fog
a shadowy moon ascending above the road-scape in the mountains
I was conscious of the straight-up jazz emanating from the radio
though my thoughts retained an ambiguous melody from the past,
the red dial glowed on the instrument panel as it moved to the left
while I de-accelerated past a fallen sign and a fortuitous pact
strings from a piano, keys on a clarinet, full lips from a sensual moment
beyond the tinted windshield of a memory and the outline of her face
I squinted, reached over the steering wheel and rubbed the glass
she was fading in and out as she existed now only in my head,
the madness of the poet’s soul is self-awareness
and that words are but an existential promise
a reflection bounded by the restless limits of a thought
for the most provocative appeal being the quiet conversation in the heart.