Jack Scott writes

Road  

The road itself was night 
dark as space, 
studded here and there 
with random light 
streaming past as if in flight, 
as if celestial, 
but not so, 
no stars or comets, galaxies, 
only tollbooths, turnpikes, 
treadmill roads, 
rest stops begging quarters.

New England names streak past 
a flashcard for each passing town 
twenty names, related, in a row, 
extended family of 
northeastern aristocracy, 
much the same 
for every by-passed town, 
but none yet for where I want to be: 
now a name upon a map, 
unreal until I get there, 
abstraction at the end of mileage 
measured by some hick 
in love with distance 
and not so sure of light.

Six hundred miles 
of car chase on a screen, 
a game played with a fast machine. 
The prize is simply getting there. 
Six hundred miles of road, 
a one-night trick, 
stag film without a cunt or prick. 
My love is home away from home,
asleep from yawn of ten 
till well after dawn. 
I will arrive before she wakes 
however long postponement takes; 
odometer is a kind of clock, 
time and distance
 much the same, 
under observation: 
both molasses.

My eyes are tired and burn, 
but bore into the thickness of the air. 
My ears tune in the beacons of the night, 
aural outposts sharing loneliness 
until their signals fade 
and I dial the safe 
opening another. 
Tendonitis stings one driving arm 
and then its alternate. 
The body moves because I tell it to, 
the car because it’s driven.

Kennebunktown, 
aloof to the Thru-Way, 
adjacent by necessity 
architecture veiled by dawn, 
its dwellers deeply hidden, 
a sleepy blink from lowered lid, 
a guest for gas, then gone, 
and on through fog toward Portland.

I cannot glimpse Maine’s water, 
on my right and parallel, 
but hear imagined activity 
like a docked boat’s grinding 
against restraints, 
and feel a rising tide of memory.
I’ve always had a sense of water.

Not far to go, 
I was closer than I thought 
to Portland, right where I left it 
too many years ago. 
It didn’t have this sadness then; 
I guess I brought it with me. 
I found the place I ate 
lobster breakfast ten years past 
with beer and Bromoseltzer -
a dockside dive, clean enough 
for watermen and stevedores. 
Closed and swanky now 
with cocktails and Italian chow. 
Progress has caught up to both of us. 
Portland has a By-Pass now 
and North is further north, of course; 
its frontierness has been gentrified. 
Shedding luminescent fog 
day reveals itself. 
Having driven through my deficit 
of sleep and comfort, 
like Tantalus, 
my destination 
recedes still further north 
in space and time, 
or so it seems: 
a woman sleeping in a bed, 
myself beside her; 
until then, uncertainty, 
and the same thereafter. 
Incomplete trajectory. 
I have landed in an alien day         
indistinct upon the map. 
Rand-McNally, take a nap.

I wish I could, 
but high on sleeplessness 
between two beds, 
on tightwire spanning them 
I’m not flying, merely up, 
dangerously so. 
Down is a direction, 
gravity its compass. 
When I’ve landed 
I’ll drive on 
toward the land of you, 
or failing that, its embassy.

 
Maine -- Florian Rodarte