Objects
seen in the rear-view mirror
might be closer
than they appear.

This warning,
you said,
could apply to us.
All the time you were there,
very near.

I considered those words for a while.
I thought I was far down the road ahead,
far down the road and free.

Following on behind,
you were moving
much closer to me.

You were far closer up than I knew.
Now I consider more clearly
nothing about this is strange.

When the view is so wide and distorted
our impressions can often be wrong.
Things very rapidly change.

All that you see behind you
may not be distant, but near.

Things from the past still affect us.
They creep up on us from the rear.

I thought I could go and forget you.
We were closer than we appeared.
Between glances, the gap had been filled.

Accident happen so fast.
We might have collided
or spun off the road,
or rolled.
One of us might have been killed.

This thought fills me with terror.
To leave you behind was an error.
We should travel in future together.
There’s no sense in having two cars.