from my unpublished second collection
You’re on a planet moving through space. It rumbles along like a huge diesel rig reluctant to shift gears. One by one the lights turn green just as it approaches. The beat-up Volvo trying to pass is constantly unlucky, first in one lane, then another, trapped in an endless orbit. A bicycle messenger almost clips the rig’s dirty fender; or a jaywalker saunters out of the way; and rarely, the sickening thwack of something that has hit the grill: some poor bird, debris from the road, and once there was a deer, which shook the engine on its mountings and dented the hood before bouncing off, which some take as proof that no one watches over us, and others take as proof of a promise.
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First published in Alaska Quarterly Review
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images and text © by Alpay Ulku
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