Night Journey

When it's like this,

when mum is driving

and everyone is quiet,

heads toppling with sleep,

and the motorway is a dizzy black

slicked with lights,

when it's like this,

the car is not a mile machine.

It is a thought machine.

New thoughts fizz from nowhere.

New thoughts tick and gleam,

find strange shapes,

strange colours,

build things,

grow wings.

New thoughts sizzle out into the dark.

Old thoughts find new homes,

new roads

or

pop like bubbles.

Worries go slow mo,

fade to grey

and vanish.

Because the car is not a mile machine.

It is a thought machine.