Praise the beam of that light that slices
through late afternoon traffic.
and the faint scatter of that light
on the roadbed graded to a gradual bend.
Praise the gradual bend.
And praise the worker who climbed
up the catwalk at 4 a.m. to tape
the stencil, R48, high on the tunnel wall.
spray-painting R48 in rusty red,
and then mounted the back plate,
connecting the cable to the power source,
completing what is
every day taken for granted, among all
the hours, perishable, yet to come.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 18, Issue 5.
Wendy Drexler‘s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Barrow Street, Meatpaper, Mid-American Review, Nimrod (semi-finalist, 2006 Nimrod/Hardman Pablo Neruda Prize), Peregrine, Poetry East, Tar River Poetry, Off the Coast, and other journals. Her first book-length collection, Western Motel, was published in 2012 by Turning Point. Her work has been featured on Verse Daily and in the anthologies Blood to Remember: American Poets on the Holocaust and Burning Bright: Passager Celebrates 21 Years. Her chapbook, Drive-Ins, Gas Stations, the Bright Motels (Pudding House 2007), was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and Cider Press Review nominated her for a 2011 Pushcart Prize. Wendy is a poetry editor for Sanctuary, the magazine of the Massachusetts Audubon Society. Her website is WendyDrexlerPoetry.com.
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