(prose poem, untitled)

I saw a glorious mirage once. And only once. We were driving west on a two-laned state route that was lined on either side with nothing but strip malls, a funeral parlor, Dunkin Donuts, a tux place, used bookstores, fast food after fast food, just everything all at once. But at the vanishing point of the long road, clouds had piled up to dream a mountain. This mountain wasn’t there but it was. Some real blue mountains were actually at another point on the compass, over to the north. I could look out the passenger side window and see those real mountains. Pine trees stood all over these blue cloud mirage mountains. You could see the contours of the ways up the mountain, how you would walk to reach the top, the bare spots, and the craggy stone parts of it. You could see the shapes of the pines, the way light bathed them in this golden hour. It was late evening and it had just rained. It was still mostly overcast where we were driving but the sunlight must have had some breaks in the clouds. We were heading in the direction of the mirage and its brightness. You saw it and I saw it. We confirmed the impossible thing with each other in language. Somehow it was more surprising than even a U.F.O. would have been. Minutes later, it began to grow fuzzy and then just started to dissipate. It lost all resolution and soon it was nothing but clouds losing their outlines, saying, nothing here to see, we’re nothing but clouds. Drive on.