Render Distance

We are traveling again,

not for reasons like sightseeing, thrill, or business,

but with all of our stuff,

to another room in a new city.

It's raining,

the type that just looms softly.

Not blasting down, raining cats and dogs,

but like dribbles of snow, slowly fading away.

The horizon's white.

Not the snow's white, but the clouds' white.

Like living in a disconnected pocket world

that just never seems to end.

As if pulling down

the render distance in Minecraft.

I see through a window beaded with droplets,

dead eyes fixed outside.

Hands a little coarse, stomach a little empty.

Stuffed in the back, with bags beside me.

I see

plastic clogging the streams,

invasive species encroaching slowly,

Rocks small and big fallen from above 

Rubber moving over wet asphalt,

steel guardrails on one side,

jagged cut stone on the other.

Occasional houses, built impossibly.

A.V.