M. Scott Douglass

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Trespasser

My headlights split the dark
as I drive southbound on 15-501.

A coyote trots across the road
then poses in a field to watch me pass,
glares at me in a way that murmurs,
I see you slinking out of town
before the city folk know you’re gone.

He’s right. Like him, I don’t fit their lifestyle.
Yet, here I am, an uninvited guest
in his domain.

Further down the road, deer huddle
near a tree line, heads bobbing and nodding
like young yentas. They pause as I pass,
and I know they’ve been talking about me.

One dark road becomes another then
another as the world’s alarm clocks take aim
at approaching dawn. First come semis,
then rain, then the glare of headlights
reflecting off wet asphalt, stitching
small towns to bigger ones.

I don’t feel welcome or unwelcome here;
part of or separated from these
familiar places I drive past and leave behind.

The coyote understood.
I don’t belong to this place or time
and maybe never did.

In My Happy Place

I’m surrounded by smiley-face boxes,
boxes within boxes within boxes,
whole joyous communities of cardboard
going forth and multiplying, sprouting
from custom-fit wombs like Russian dolls,
filling empty spaces of my life
with newer, happier products,
keeping me home and safe,
sheltered from a world gone mad,
insulated from social, climatic,
and biological contagion,
unperturbed by the explosive nature
of others: neighbors, strangers, aliens,
all boxed-out of our lives, our residence
by a brown wall of blissful splendor.

Still Unpacking the Mysteries of the Universe

I found Buddha wrapped
in a blue moving blanket
inside an Igloo cooler,
huddled with a big-eyed
metal Minion, both seeking
shelter on a journey
to enlightenment, a place
to rest in a peaceful garden,
perhaps nirvana.
At the very least, to breathe
fresh air and feel the sun
after six months of storage,
having contemplated
the fate of Schrödinger’s cat
from the inside.
Scott Douglass grew up in Pittsburgh and lived in Charlotte, NC for over thirty years before moving back to Pennsylvania, now living in Edinboro. He is the founder, publisher, and managing editor at Main Street Rag Publishing Company, a Pushcart Prize nominee, and North Carolina ASC Grant recipient. His poetry has appeared in North American Review, Prairie Schooner, Kakalak, Twelve Mile Review, and Salvation South (among others). His graphic design work has earned two PICA Awards and an Eric Hoffer Award nomination. 8000 Mile Roll, A Motorcycle Memoir, is his first book of prose. His poetry books include Living in a Red State Blues, Just Passing Through, Hard to Love, Steel Womb Revisited, Balancing on Two Wheels, and Auditioning for Heaven.
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