THE GIRL IN THE ROAD

By John Grey

Driving the same way,

night after night,

eyes stay open

but the mind closes,

houses, one by one,

passed in darkness,

all are asleep

but for the solitary driver,

then thick woods, no sky,

headlights on full,

what’s that ahead?

a child in the road,

all white, transparent,

staring scream-less

at the death

you grip with your hands,

too late you see her,

run her through

with no thump,

as just for that moment,

there is no time, no space,

and yet all of time, and every place,

and so unlike the deer

that you swerved to avoid,

only moments before,

but seems so long ago,

while what happened years past

won’t stop happening now.

John Grey is an Australian poet, U.S. resident, recently published in New World Writing, North Dakota Quarterly, and Tenth Muse. Latest books, Between Two Fires, Covert, and Memory Outside the Head, are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, Birmingham Arts Journal, La Presa, and Shot Glass Journal.