Don’t sleep in a parked car.

You awake, windows fogged, hands on the wheel,

the dash and controls suddenly foreign,
like a safe word repeated too often. What queer

drives brought you here? You hurtle ahead but the car

is still. You wake up turning the wheel
and avoiding its meaning. Turning a pink plastic wheel.

Pounding a rubber clown horn like a little girl. And harbor strange

fears of waking up driving. Of waking up lost. You awake in a car
and can’t find your car. Turn the wheel and it locks. You’re an alien.
Previously appeared in Tar River Poetry.