A parsimonious oscillation
rippled back from some
looky-loo photo op
and I wound up
poking along
with a stinker on my flank
for what felt like hours
the whole six-lane line-up
snared like pebbles
in a sock whacking
the heck out of everybody’s
hurry-rhythm
until I burped past
the cordoned crunchfest
that fiddled with the flow
in the first place
and cranked back up
out of the antediluvian
to a respectably post-modern pace
on my way to a round
of conversational ping-pong
featuring my stridulous tale
of freeway turned no-way
and that’s why
I’m late
Copyright 2015, Diane Gage
Diane Gage lives in the SoCal metroplex. Recently, her poems have appeared in Synesthesia Literary Journal and Silver Birch Press. Her poems will appear in Postcard Poems and in the anthology Sunshine/Noir II (San Diego City Works Press).