I’d made the drive a hundred times I’d had no coffee for months Except today The cup saving me from Drowsy death on Highway 5 Mid sip the flutter caught my attention The orange and black quiver cutting The comforting smell of flat white It was probably a Painted Lady It made me sad I refocused on the road Noticing now, for the first time Today That I looked through a hundred splats Or more Thwap Another one Added to the mass grave of my windshield. I’m just seeing this now? Good, God How have I been able to see the road Fuck. Now I can’t see anything else Just various blots of opaque to yellow to green Some of them were literally Right in front of my eyeballs But only now in focus. What made the butterfly register When these hundred dead gnats did not? It’s color maybe. The violent shake that pulled it Out of the peripheral Or did I connect better to its Narrative of metamorphosis & change Did I see myself like that and so could see her? I’ve been thinking a lot lately about death And hope But more about death My mother always bitched at me To clean my windshield before I drove To wash it all away So nothing would hinder my view To where I was going That straight line of the 5 Straight and easy all the way No need to complicate things So little like those tiny black lives.