Roadblock

Call me the bee buzzing in the museum. The younger sister fussing through a house still stiff with loss. The meddling goblin in the mausoleum. My dream: with three in the front seat, we drive under a bridge and halt. A huge gray bus blocks the whole road, including us, the only travelers who are left alive. It’s drizzling; the windshield wiper blades busily gesture, yet we’re nearly blind. You two seem not to mind blank windows, pulled-down shades. I mind. I want to get out and explore, to move around the deathly obstacle. “Don’t make a sound,” you say. (Who are you?) “Don’t go near that door.” Our mountain drive last month—that wasn’t dreamed. We three again. We ran a dog down. I alone looked back, alone let out a cry. I saw it lying in its blood and screamed. So tell me what these images portend. Am I a noisy bird of evil omen or just a person, apprehensive, human, moving ahead, kid sister into woman, stonewalled by death each time she rounds a bend?