There are lots of hitchhikers on 101 in Northern California.
And I never thought much about hitchhikers before.
But I saw them constantly, day after day.
This is called "Hitchhiker."
I woke up sad this morning.
I picked up a woman in a dream about hitchhiking.
She unzipped her yellow slicker, then showed me a gun,
asking if I'd like to die alone on the beach
or out in a field, near cows and egrets.
She took me to the field.
When the first egret lifted his heavy wings
at the sound of our steps across salty grass,
she said, now catch a ride for your soul.
Then I woke up, my thumb bent under the pillow,
as if I'd extended it toward heaven.
I thought the woman was my sister,
for her mouth reminded me of a mouth shaped
to blow out candles.
I've forgotten my sister's birthday.
Or was that my mouth, transposed onto a face I
knew too well to recognize, concentrating in the mirror
on detail as I did on the shade below my eyes, my uneven nose
bone, my teeth?
When I drove to work, I neared a woman with her thumb
pointed north.
I could have stopped for her, but I was afraid.
My fingers ached as I clutched the wheel.
I knew her veins were turning dark as my own,
struggling out of the skin for air,
that she slept with her hands pressing down
her heart like me.
Yet blood might break from the red wires in her eyeballs,
blinding her until she viewed my legs
and breasts as commonplace.
She'd shoot me, then touch my cold cheek,
not connecting it to the hollow formed by her own hard jaw.
She turned into a speck within my rearview mirror.
Maybe I confused her with egrets,
maybe with the harsh light thrown
into my clear, unfriendly eyes.