Departure

The most lasting
memory
is of gazing
backwards
down the highway
at night,
yellow lines fading
behind a ripple
of taillights,
a sky spilling wide
across the hills
soaked in the uniform
dark of evening
while white-eyed stars
winked like metallic
magnolia petals in a
seamless
black river,
spreading their vision
across the miles
that I watched disappear

by Kate Johnson