Once I drove seven hundred miles
across the pocked face of Nevada
having slept one hour in two nights.
My mind wandered and I sang and swerved,
drifting off--
the mirrored brine pools along I-15
reflected splintery fenceposts and
halfcircle culverts,
this lone pickup truck sailing like a swan
over a translucent asphalt lake.
All of it a vision, swirling and hazed,
the open road and the shoulder and the median
and some direction, some driving westward;
I don't remember much of it.
I'm lucky I survived.
That salted and mountained landscape,
reeling me in over its sagebrush and juniper
in a dream,
with some semblance of destination.

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Just some thoughts and reflections on the craziest long drive I've ever done, Provo to Placerville when I had only slept one hour in the last two nights. I was asleep before I passed the Kennecott smokestack.