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He’s breaking all the time

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"He's breaking all the time!"
our cabbie says.
He's what?
"The cab in front of me is breaking all the time!"
Oh my lord. Somebody stop him.
We need time!
And then of course I realize it's
just that it's late and I'm
skating along. 
"He's braking all the time"
is all that other car's doing.
His backlights flash and flash and flash.
Our taxi scoops around, passes on the right.
Bright white bolts of drizzle slam into the speeding road
streaming it back out behind us faster than we can parse.
All part of
that necklace I wear made of
night trips home from the airport.

Comments

2 responses to “He’s breaking all the time”

  1. lemonblossom Avatar
    lemonblossom

    Cecil, this is lovely — funny, reaching for the contempo image that suits our urban-suburban lives. But the diction: flash, scoop, pass, drizzle, slam, stream, parse — sounds like rain splashing, creates susurrations in our ears from the sounds of water falling. The last line, a poignant knife-wrench about urban loneliness, modern demands on our time, the prices we pay for such a life. This works so well, IMO.

    Reply
  2. Erin Avatar
    Erin

    What I like are the rhyming (or close!) words throughout: brake, break, late, skate, and then the words that have the same mouth-feel: splash, flash, parse, fast, past. It gives it the feel of gliding—hydroplaning, careening maybe—through the piece until we slam into the reality.
    And like lemonblossom, I think the last line is exquisite, but I see it more like pearls than a gutting.
    Lovely.

    Reply

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