They hit the back roads,
miles and more grassy miles
of hitchhikers decked out in long lost fashions
while they wait for their stories to be told.

He guns the truck to eighty-five
and smacks her hand when she tries
to reach for the radio.

Miles and more underworked miles.
Fields with solitary homes in the distance
where no one wants to be stand still
but can’t leave for fear of those violent rumors
that have been following around the wind that picks up
at eight p.m. every night.

The people are few
and demented in between and seem to know
before anyone when trouble is balling up its fists
for something bad on the horizon.

The three of them in that truck
know all about it. They finished high school
four years ago. A lot of the time it feels like
they’re paying off the student loans
of twenty ambitious icons.

They got married two years ago
and have yet to get any children out of it. No one can say
they haven’t tried. Not one friend or well-wisher can claim
he hasn’t prayed enough,
or that she hasn’t seen enough kindly southern doctors.

Youngsters love to let hope drift through
their fingers. The two of them are starting
to really hate people like that.

The third person,
the third wheel,
he doesn’t really hate anything. He writes books
or some such thing, tells jokes and borrows
a lot of money from loan sharks who are always
auditioning for one reality show or another.

He sits in the back of the truck
and miraculously gets his cigarette lit
every single time.

The couple in the front hasn’t said much
since leaving the baby shower two hours ago.
She worked out all her crying in the bathroom
at Applebees. He dug his hands into his pockets
as he went inside the gas station to pay twenty dollars
on number five.

They’re getting mean in their old age and
Terrified that they might run out of people
who will put up with it. He never wants to send her
packing into the kitchen floor. She never, ever wants
to disappear at a rest stop during one of their trips to Northern Virginia.

In the back of the truck
the third wheel knows they’re running out of time.

He prays for wisdom regardless of consequence.
He still manages to keep from getting angry
and wishes he was just someone who leapt from
car to car, truck to truck, city to world at large
to do nothing more than observe, nod
and move on.

01/11/2010

Posted on 01/12/2010
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