Highway 52

"It ain't cheep being cool"
blasts the red iron bull--
painted with small yellow chicks--
rumbling along my right;

we head south toward Iowa.
Does anything ever happen in Iowa?

I pass him on the left and wink.

His two-horned
smoke blows through
his two ears
like in the cartoons;

he hauls logs stacked
and bound together.

Salty hills roll by,
peppered with pitch cattle--

turn their heads,
chew their cud,
slow motion maple syrup.

Something happens
between the iron bull
and flat, Midwestern gusts--

my car quakes,
knuckles snowy
on the ice gray wheel.

The white sky
bleaks at me--

left to Goodwin,
right to Desdin.

I dance an empty foxtrot--
back, forth,
back, forth.

Stretch me across state lines--
the scene gets flat,
then flatter.

Blue command--
"Concentrate on Driving"

I'm in the space between
home and home--

May 2005