Going Through the Motions
       

Eventually, the way you don't notice
dirt on the windshield until someone

sweeps a finger across, and it's clear
you've been driving through a fog

for longer than you know, it's easy
to get used to fear and anger, the kind

they served at the diner, closed for months
of course, or the kind you've been feeding

on alone in the back of the garage where
you keep tools you bought for some task

long abandoned. They lean against each other,
rattle from a wind through a cracked window

making a sound like skeletons would
if they could say what they thought of you

now. Hope is a thin membrane, maybe
patience too, a lake we float on looking down

to see what we lost, but seeing instead
our own unsteady reflection.

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Copyright © 2022 Grant Clauser All rights reserved
from The Greensboro Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission