I remember when my high school friend
stayed over for the night and we watched
The Doors for the first time. It filled us
with crackling energy, an urge to be and do
something memorable. We climbed out
the basement window into the wide dark
and walked down to the interstate bridge.
We hobbled over rocks until we were at the top
directly under the swaying, pulsing highway,
terrified and thrilled by how much
the road moved. When the big rigs
rolled over us, the road was an ocean
and we were underwater.
It may seem like a silly, childish grasp
at life, but we were static electricity then,
sticking to this world, on a night now clinging
to memory.
Mary Ann Honaker is the author of Becoming Persephone (Third Lung Press, 2019), Whichever Way the Moon (Main Street Rag, 2023), Night is Another Realm Altogether (Sheila-Na-Gig, 2026) and the forthcoming Doors of Fire and Night (Lily Poetry Review Press, 2027). She currently lives in Beckley, West Virginia.