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PORTSIDE CULTURE

WHY WOULDN’T AUTONOMOUS CARS CRY AT NIGHT?  
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Ryan McCarty
August 18, 2024
Rattle
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_ The race is on to improve road traffic, says poet Ryan McCarthy
about autonomous autos, but tomorrow we’ll be riding just the same.
_

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Why Wouldn’t Autonomous Cars Cry at Night?

By Ryan McCarty

Awake and acutely aware

of each other’s proximity

to streetlights and the shifting

shapes of moons on their own

empty interiors, with enough

of them huddled in the lots,

why not honk? Why not holler

at the silent ones, identically dark

and empty on their left and right,

the whole still pile like a flicker

of a future scrapyard in the making?

Why not scream to call a crowd

of ghosts down from their squares

of light up there, those past

wanderers of these same streets,

subjects of their own lonely stories

now forgettable as algorithms,

broke codes that used to commute

in packs, hunter gatherers

heading into the sunrise chatting,

now silent, autonomous, floating

like a disconnected signal? And how

do we hear our children in the night

calling, but tomorrow all the same

just ride them silently to work? 

Ryan McCarty is a teacher and writer, living in Ypsilanti, MI. His
poetry has appeared recently in _Abandoned Mine_, _Blue Collar Review,
Coal City Review, Door Is a Jar, Major 7th Magazine, Rattle Poets
Respond_, _Topical Poetry, Trailer Park Quarterly, _and _Wasteland
Review_. He also writes regularly for _Left Voice_ and _Politics of
the Kitchen Table with My Family Crafting Nearby_
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* Poetry
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