Stability

Clouds look stable against the blue
behind the moving billboard,
roadside attraction of leafless branches.

I sit next to my brother in the backseat,
day after Christmas.

What sort of stability am I seeking,

such a jet setter
jetting as the sun is setting
along the horizontal sky?

Passing Cataract Elementary
on the right,

this black hole in my chest
devours itself
hungry and hot
from Prednizone.

Faces swim,
obsessed.

Distance is this cleaving in my chest,
this watering in my jaw,
this dry air at the back of my throat--

and this absence of a photograph
in my hand.

January 2005