Originally posted 4/25/2010.

According to my doctor
I’ve become
a limousine — 

I carry passengers,
and not necessarily
ones I’d choose on my own.

When first I heard I begged the doctor
for a uniform
or a very special hat.

“I’m afraid not,” he said.
“You aren’t the limousine driver,
you are the limousine.”

It was hard to accept at first
that I was no longer a vehicle
for my own journey

but I’ve gotten used to it.
It’s still a life
most of the time.

When the noise in the back
gets to be too much,
I raise the glass and forget it.

Once in a while
a voice will catch me right
and I’ll listen longer than usual,

maybe repeat
what it says
to myself when I’m alone.

These riders don’t care about me
as long as they get where they’re going
and the ride has some style all the way to the end.

I’m a limousine today but I don’t know 
what I’ll call myself
after I’ve worn out at last — 

a box, a rustbucket,
a shadow parked for good
in an unlit space.

Originally posted 6/20/2009.

From the street,
the dense chunk 
of a slammed car door.

A hard, confident summons:

“Hey pendejo –“

Two men speaking.
I can’t hear the words.

Then,
the first big voice again —

“You never know.
When it comes,
it comes.”

After that,
nothing more —

no car door,
no house door,
no words.

I turn off my lights, 
climb into bed,
waiting for something
that never happens.

Whenever it comes,
it seems
it won’t be
tonight.