National Poetry Month’s Poem-A-Day 30-Day Challenge: Day 16
ROOF RACK
“There is only so much I can keep inside,”
he said out loud, ready to burst.
“Trying to hide in plain sight
really is the worst kind of role play.
Just once I wish you’d say,
‘Tell me what you think is true.’
I know you won’t respect me if I do,
if you finally see my mismatched packed bags
strapped to my roof rack, exposed to any jack
next to me in the Walmart parking lot,
exposed to the hot sun high in a haughty sky,
bare before every bug-cloud simmering above a country street,
easy for a thief’s knife slicing in the deep night,
while, at least, and where, at last, I’d finally be getting some decent sleep.”