Sunday Drive

There was a bright blue light aglow inside the open door

of the cinder block bar called Mike’s just off the road

to the right about halfway between Lynchburg and Big Island.

Too early for a tavern to be open, but there it was—the light

above the door like a beacon calling me into the darkness

to drink like never before. The smell of petrichor on the cracked

macadam sweetened the air as I drove with the windows down

into the mountain that was partially shrouded by a sudden veil

of Blue Ridge fog. It was a Sunday morning in late September

and the churches were filled like hives in every town along

the way. I sat behind the altar of my wheel, keeping to my lane

on 501, singing along to Shania Twain, Emmylou, and Patsy

Cline. A crow stood on the yellow line of the dangerous curve

in Coleman Falls eating a possum that lay in a heap of tangled

entrails like a bas-relief of feelings—“They’re mine,” I said

to the bird as I drove on by then watched him flap away

like the God of Shadows. I prayed for the possum who’d played

so dead before he died a pack of coyotes let him be.

I prayed for its soul when I saw a cloud in the shape of it

beginning to crawl on the floor of sky into nothing at all.