Interstate: A Poem by Pen Pearson

I’m driving down I-29 after sunset

when an owl appears in the median,

its body ringed by twilight’s halo.

The bird swoops toward me, brakes

before the windshield, and arcs away—

like an airplane lifting off tarmac

into the gray skyline, then banking

against a headwind to change course.

I cruise faster than the speed limit,

the owl’s spectral presence hovering

in my rearview mirror’s blind spot

until I begin to wonder if it isn’t

my father trying to make his peace

with this world, our night, or me,

though he’s been dead over a year.

But what exactly was he trying to say

as the owl flew up and out of sight—

where a rearview mirror just might

but doesn’t reveal much of anything,

only the longing of whoever’s watching

its reflection, just waiting for a sign?

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Pen Pearson is the author of BLOOMSBURY’S LATE ROSE, a novel about the poet, Charlotte Mew, which Chickadee Prince Books will publish in 2019.

Design by Steven S. Drachman from an image by Joshua Hogan.