Ritual in the Wee Hours

I’m almost always alone
and yet, in the late hours
I mutter to myself, more like
a whisper really. It is something
like a devotion, an homage
to the sacredness of the night—
the smallness of my muttering.

I must believe something can hear me—
my ritual in the wee hours.
“I’m going to get a goddamn big car
and drive, and nothing, and nobody
had better get in my way.”