No Passing
We are stopped by the light,
its absence of authority
spread evenly across the land
and sky. The rules of the road
we have chosen are subject
to our whims. In the car next to ours
a faceless mannequin grins.
The line between us is solid
and broken. Each lane is a competing
theory of distance, and speed
is the mouse within the shadow of the hawk.
The barricades surface.
The snow begins as rain.
Ron Czerwien
Kay Sage, No Passing, 1954. Oil on canvas, 51 1/4 x 38 inches. Collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Purchase 55.10. Photography by Sheldan C. Collins.
