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Highways, Rivers, Home
It’s only another road in a world
Tall weeds swaying in the exhaust-tinged breeze
Litter in ditches, crumbling shacks
Every sign, every face, looks the same
The lone and long-distance scream
Echoes and reflects far away
Miles to go
Roll away, cling to your nights
Keep a watch over the Dipper
And finally, on the last leg of the trip,
You’ll find your home waiting
Though you snatch jelly and sugar packets in every hotel cafeteria
Collecting them for paper doll luncheons
Jump on beds, read those phone books
Though Mom and Dad fight at the Calico Café
Though Joe sinks into a Selma post office
Blank, dusty, discouraged,
Though you take your fill of fast food and playground slides in Alabama
You leave laughing in a pink tutu, till you reach for your chocolate bunnies
Nested in crumpled Easter grass, stashed in Daddy’s trunk
And your brother sits on your foot, twisting it into a limp.
Daddy takes pictures in old gas stations
Phone numbers are streaked on highway signs
Mirages and illusions
Weary fields and highways
Canned ravioli, abandoned laundry
Hidden by the roadside after the picnic.
Do you remember the ferry?
It takes you across the river
Till you limp to the other bank, holding Mommy’s hand
Otters among the ancient trees
Capture the reckless sun on their coats
Borne on silver and crimson tides
Dive, resurface –all mystery tucked into shimmering fur
Lost of the late afternoon
And our hollow grasping for pleasure and peace
Otters bear their young on these banks
Unseen and elusive swimmers
Breaking the placid water as they jump
Fluid as river, sky, leaf.
Do you see an otter still?
It only comes to stray to the surface, crying goodbye
We are face to face, like we are watching the past
We watch otters as they
Splash, disappear, resurface
Till darkness comes
And we only hear
Waters break.
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Yes, a childhood vacation memory. Mostly an unpleasant memory, but with a few bright spots.