-Another moment in Kansas, and again on Interstate 35 North-

Interstate 35 North to Salina

And the sleeveless arm protruding

From the shattered window

Of the crumpled cab, crushed beneath
Its jackknifed trailer, postures its lifeless hand
Gracefully into a cool night's rain.

It’s all I can manage to process of death's finality. 

Kansas Highway Patrol
Draped in rain-gear,

Campaigns wrapped in plastic cover

Protecting their rigid authority,

Signal with sharp-

Violet flares of light

Directing me beyond the great

And broken Autocar diesel

Hissing and dripping its fluids

Glazing the Interstate.

Strange, how the rain

Taps quietly upon the Beetle's roof

As the AM radio is quickly silenced.

Instinctive, how my hand

Reaches for the pack of cigarettes

Pressed into the headliner
Above the windshield's visor. 

Otherworldly, how the drenched

Cops motion the living forward,––

The living and their living machinery,

Passing the new dead in solemn procession.

I'm moved by the watch strapped to the delicate

Form of the wrist;
Could be Adam's wrist.
Inverted, could be God's.

Strange, how out-of-place the wristwatch seems.
Otherworldly, how the simplest of things still work.

Interstate 35 North to Salina.
I remember this moment.

I'm driving North from Wichita to Salina.

I don’t remember the part which would tell me why.