And Then I Look Away (edit 1)

[Leanne]

I have become caught in traffic. -- this is such an odd phrasing that I'm actually starting off the poem with the image of a man morphed with a traffic jam in some ungodly caughtintraffic monster -- I haven't yet decided whether I like that or not
It's seven-thirty and I know
a half-hour later it would not be -- "half an hour" is rather less forced than "a half-hour" -- not just because it's a dialect thing, I'm really only considering the sounds in this case -- also, breaking on "be" does you no favours as it causes the rhyme of "know/so" to be almost entirely buried, which is a shame
so much so. But I keep staring,
forcing the car between the lines, -- I am not prejudiced against -ings ... I just don't think that two so close together are helpful in this case
because life demands the paycheck
and the paycheck demands the hour -- rhythm might be improved by removing "pay" here
and the hour demands that I sit, -- is "that" necessary?
a face trapped behind the windshield,
caught among all these wheels and all -- reappearance of "caught" might not be the best word choice in such a short poem, especially with "catch" in the next line -- I'd be tempted to leave it here but change the first line
these shields. And sometimes I catch a set
of eyes sealed in their own lined world.
Sometimes they also catch mine. -- you could consider breaking after "sometimes" if it's not too gimmicky, or putting "sometimes" up on the preceding line