Poem 18

This is my most formal poem since I refuse to rhyme or use any conventional sort of meter. Each line contains eight syllables, but it is not written in any kind of intentional tetrameter (four stressed syllables, beats, to a line). It's not the first syllabic poem I've posted here, but I won't tell you which was the other.
I like the challenge of writing in syllabics, and the form suggested some meanings that I would not have otherwise noticed.


I-90, Just outside Ritzville

The moon has set, leaving the stars
free to trickle down their cold light.
From the highway the lowly moan
of a semi-truck floats over
the sage brush, and dust to my ears.
My hand plunges deep into the
pocket of my jeans for the keys
to a time where I left your face.

Out of gas, I left you parked, dead,
on the shoulder, like an old skin.
“She’ll be here when I get back, I
just need to stretch my legs for now.”
As I walked, the dust billowed up
with every footprint I gave you;
lifeline traced in sand on the side
of a sun-scarred, black highway .

At night the wind feels closer, like
sheets around a too-warm body
and twenty minutes from home but
I’ve forgotten when I parked
and the key has somehow slipped
from my pocket into gravel.
The stars laugh because they shine, so
near each other, so far from me.