Evening drive home
Tollway, then divided highway
Then neighborhood street
The goal is to do it
Without stopping
Anything, not to stop
This evening I made good time
Less traffic
Since tomorrow is Good Friday
At my street
I pressed the opener
Then turned into the driveway
To roll
Straight up
Into the garage
But I stopped
About fifteen feet short
Not to crash into…
The robins
Three of them close together
In low-altitude battle
Flitting
Rising and falling
Then landing and scurrying
A sign that it’s warm
Enough to open the windows
For a while
To lie in bed and listen
To the frogs’ continuous croaking
More like creaking
Like the sound of a finger
Across the thin upturned teeth
Of a black, plastic comb
The frogs’ creaking
Carried my wife to dreaming
While I stayed awake
Listening past the frogs
To the far-off engine whine
Of a motorcycle
The sound on a highway
A rider leaning forward
Accelerating into the night
Jim's Writing 