I got confused, leaving the noisy bar,
lost myself in the dark tangle of new freeways,

new language, new music knotted in my ears,
content simmering like rage.

It began to rain, about midnight
-- traffic & water rushing by me on either side --

fat drops exploding like words
in the windshield dust.

The wrong lane led me into traffic I could hardly see,
the dinosaur arms of the stadium as I passed it

-- or it, moving huge, serene as a real poet's life,
passed me: smooth, machine-like thighs

& splayed feet trampling deserts, denying rain,
gliding away in another direction.

Marjorie Rommel lives six blocks from where she was born, in Auburn, Washington, near Seattle. A newspaper reporter and editor for many years, she teaches creative writing at Highline and Pierce community colleges, and operates a public/media relations service. She is co-founder of The Northwest Renaissance, Poets, Performers & Publisher, Inc., a 25-year-old nonprofit literary coalition, and coordinates the NWR Poets at the Kent Canterbury Faire reading series, now in its 14th year. Last year, she was a Willard R. Espy Literary Foundation resident. Her ficiton, nonfiction and poetry have been published in more than 100 publications in the U.S. and U.K.

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