The Night’s Criminal Intentions Made Clear

Midnight, New Jersey suburbs.

Expressionless houses stare

into places I’ve never been.

Long streets warp into dead-ends.

The party ended with regrets,

air kisses, and many hurt feelings.

A long drive home to New Hampshire

past half-awake Manhattan,

through Connecticut’s uneasy sleep.

Too much outstanding mortgage,

too many kids in college. The stars

won’t reveal themselves until

I’m north of Springfield. Troopers

will ignore me. Huge trucks will sneer

as they pass at twenty or thirty

miles above the limit. Someone

will die alone and drunk on a curve

on a two-lane highway out of sight,

the wreckage folded like origami.

I shouldn’t have driven so far

to attend such a sullen party,

should have gotten drunk and slept

on the host sofa and driven home

in mid-morning glare. Instead I drank

club soda and stared into faces

ignited by gothic daydreams

no living man could fulfill. One

by one the women departed

with angry husbands simmering

with liquor. One by one the men

departed with disappointed wives.

The night’s criminal intentions

made clear, I packed myself

like a carry-on and drove away.

Now I’m lost in the empty streets,

desperate for turnpike or parkway.                

Vast cemeteries gloom in lamplight

intended to discourage vandals.

I drive so carefully the planet

can’t get too firm a grip on me;

and as I exit New Jersey

over the George Washington Bridge

I glance at the bottomless Hudson

and catch myself adrift and waving,

not drowning, on the carbon slick.

William Doreski 

William Doreski's work has appeared in various e and print journals and in several collections, most recently Waiting for the Angel (Pygmy Forest Press, 2009).