Exit Ramp

The first thing I notice

outside the back of my motel 

is the off ramp of State Route 

512 at Meridian. It leads to the Faire

on this early Monday morning.

The grind of trucks downshifting 

for the stop light, braking

cars and their passengers,

the rush of noise unabated.

Humankind funneled off the freeway

transports the masses like arteries

move blood throughout our fleshy forms.

People I will never share

 a smile with, or know as kin,

in line for the ferris wheel.

The strip of vegetation grown for the din

is devoid of early morning birds and silent.

Poor trees that cannot remove themselves.

I haven’t felt this small, yet met,

since I saw the Milky Way at night

from the desert—a million dots of light

in a haze of other lights who orbit

in space... it stopped my mind 

from presuming that I’m the biggest story going.