One for the Road
The headlights beam into the dark,
illuminating silence the vehicle moves into,
distant till it dopplers past, a fan of light
that breaks upon a sky so full of stars
it’s nothing but the swipe of us
intruding for a moment on the pitch of night
much as a match flares till it’s shaken out,
or as we try to make our mark
but stumble, spill its substance, light up
our surroundings only briefly, see
there’s nothing more than we’d steered into,
find we’re fumbling for the map.
*Brian Johnstone’s latest collection is The Book of Belongings (Arc, 2009). His work has appeared throughout Scotland and in the UK, America and Europe. He is a co-founder of StAnza: Scotland’s International Poetry Festival and was Festival Director from 2001-2010.
