View from the Edge

At sunset drivers hide behind the last light’s
reflections off glass, faceless robots at the controls,
hands always at nine and three, becoming one
with the vehicle, one with the highway,
one vertebra in a long spine of automatons,
red taillights flashing in the dusk. They ride
a grey ribbon weaving relentlessly west
where the road bends back to the sun.

Where does the road go once it rounds the next corner?
If the world were flat would cars drive off the end,
when the road reaches its final T? Or would they
board ferries, sail over the edge instead, like logs
down a waterfall, white water washing their faces clean?

Imagine a sea of bobbing Beamers, Subarus sailing,
Acuras at anchor when the air is dead calm.
Passing whales would wonder, perplexed polar bears ponder
at these mechanical monsters so far out of their depth—

if the world were flat.