SOBS: Poetry: Poems by Anne Alt

It's long after midnight in Concord.
There is no one left on Main Street.
All the windows are blank and dark,
except one or two.
I glide onto an empty highway.
The tollbooth
blinks red, green, red, green at me
like a horizontal Christmas tree.
I wonder how I got here
so quickly, without memory.
Was that time and distance
swallowed up
in some cosmic black hole
of highway travel?
In an instant,
I am back in Manchestter.
There is no one to be annoyed
if I stop on the bridge,
so I pause to look over the edge.
The rushing of water over the dam
fills my ears
until there is no sound in the universe
except water.
I see no one
until the accident on Elm street.
Blue and orange lights
strobe into the full-moon night,
making a crazy kaleidoscope of colors
in the mirror windows
of darkened office buildings.
The bored cops watch tow truck drivers
haul the wrecks away
before cruising to Dunkin' Donuts.
At home, the warm breeze brings only quiet.
Then Santa rattles down the street,
waking the neighborhood
with his ranting
and his shopping cart.
He has no theme tonight.
He becomes a berserk fountain,
spouting any random syllables
that might flow
from his brain to his mouth.
My cat answers him
from the window,
but he doesn't respond.