One-ways

Sterling silver compact mirror.  Paid for at a garage sale or it was from a woman relative that calls me a “grandchild.”  I don’t know.  Sort of tarnished but mirror is good to see nose, cheekbone, eyelids.  It’s not for sale.

I hold myself unblinking in the back seat of the 4Runner keeping the compact steady.  We take the one-ways.  When driven over, roads sound like cereal on teeth.  They say the best way to get from Sugarland to Missouri City is to use the back roads.  But how come I always see us tipping over into the bayou?  Because it wants us?  Two decades later, I still need terror to be tranquil.  I nap and recall the un-dead at dusk pulling their chaffed fingers through my hair.  The glare of the mirror keeps them off.