Familiarity

The next time we pull over, you take over driving for awhile.
I will sit and sleep and dream
about many things I won’t remember
except on paper.

We’ve made this trip so many times,
Minneapolis to Chicago (and back, days later)
that I feel the dark outside the car
as friendly, the headlights somehow redundant
if you switched them off the car
would know the way itself.

That familiarity eclipses us
and even though we stopped trying 100 miles,
(or is it days?)
ago, familiarity is just a step away from memory
and here in the dark, listening to you breathe
I can’t help but want to remember.