Deliberate Demarcation

I'd dropped off a coworker
from out of town
at a roach-whore hotel
since his truck
had been impounded
due to woes we all ignore.
Rain was pelting
the foreign metal
of my vehicle
with such force
that I turned off the radio
to give it the reverence
it deserved.

In the median
of Monticello's Broadway
two women stood
under umbrellas
waiting for impolite traffic
to pass
still in their workday's pantsuits.
They were trying like hell
to cross the thoroughfare
en route to a congregation
forming on the porch
of a bargain rate funeral parlor
in a town that died
with the advent of air conditioning.
No one had halted
their means of egress home
to let the mourners pass.
Microwaved dinners were calling.
Television had reality to share.
Spouses were poised
to fail expectations.

I pressed the brake pedal
and waved apologetically
for a race that forgets
where it's going.

The highway entrance
couldn't come
quickly enough.