The cockroach of the interstate,
he scurries on the walls of streets
with feathered feet that whisper secrets
of the night to sleeping asphalt.

Perched above the road, he trains
his eye to trace the shoulder’s curve,
guiding his discus brush to swirl
the line like ballerinas spinning

on stage. Inside, the world is still.
With wrinkled hands he plays the screens
and dials of the night-machine
in well-learned, rhythmic patterns, and feels

his mind detach to float out through
the bug-stained windshield, dissipate
into the city air to take
him far from where his sweeper drones.

The KJV in her lap, at night
his Mimi used to clack her worn
arthritic needles through the yarn,
weaving him in tales of Saint

Peter and John, who climbed the Mount
and begged to set up camp. But they
were told to go back down, she’d say,
to work below, God’s hands and feet.

November chill has found the cracks
and slithers in to coil around
his filmy coffee. *The gritty sound
of rumble strips, the FM cackle. 

Long nights, when licorice freeways stretch
ahead for countless miles, he thinks
of John and Peter, descending the peak
to tread the dirty streets of Phillipi.