The mystical blind spot in the rear-view mirror
burns with overexposures, its heavy drapes
on the car windows darkening the world into coal.

You turn your head to look, and a child leaps
in front of your face, holding onto your hair
as he tries to explain what you used to understand.

The backseat explodes with beautiful hounds
that only want to reach the next trail head
where life begins and the dead world of waiting

in metal cages while the blunt teeth of gears
slip to the bottom of their notches, forcing
more extinction of little-known species, is erased.

Moaning and whining projects from the back,
but you’re driving into a Wyoming blizzard
at rush hour. No, it’s the bleeding glare of sunlight

off gold plating of the professional sporting arena,
where it floats by the river, spitting out ocean
ships through six-story doors of the parking garage.

You drive and in the blind spot is an urban block
glowering, smoking and blazing after a future
water shortage has forced global warming deniers

onto the streets, where they’ve brought their rifles,
bazookas, and mobile launchers to the plaza.
But you can’t see. You have to keep your eyes

and the wheel well aimed, pursuing the business
of post-carbon adaptation, half of your car
burning, the other half carried by a thermal.