Portuguese stew in Provincetown, rugosa dunes,
my husband’s grave. I touch the stone and say goodbye.
The postcard where our children played recedes,
same for envy and regrets, as I drive away.
Rewinding pink dreams in the headlights, foolish dares
in the dark, reviewing shredded heartaches and joys
like the unraveled tires and dead deer that memorialize
the scarred shoulders of Pennsylvania.
Ohio drains the shame of a foolish girl who thought she knew,
Indiana chugs side to side with trucks and whining trains.
In Illinois, a tender plague of corn advances to the parking lot.
I remember a kiss, warm with butter and salt.
Jittery fears of hitting the wrong beat desiccate
in the Iowa sun. Bikes on painted vans headed to the meet
and giant quilts on billboards cue a Meredith Wilson song:
What the heck, you’re welcome, join us at the picnic.
Humming past years of Nebraska wheat and history,
the horizon clears: This land has room enough for me.
The dog, unconcerned, snoozes on memory foam.
Colorado reveals expectations of self-sufficiency.
We plow the night on unlit roads, no safety bars.
I’m on my own. The last time I was up at three
was the back porch one August, comet-watching
with my girl. Now she fusses at me.
Alert for sudden deer or elk, I steer each curve
determined to arrive. She plates up scrambled eggs
framed by volcanic canyon cliffs,
with a geography lesson on the side.
Utah’s glorious columns reach for the sky,
compounds of trailers hide dusty lives unseen.
I hear my grandfather’s voice drift by and remember
monument tours and chapters of Perry Mason.
Idaho offers no tenderness. No bathroom here,
warns the station sign. But the truck stop waiter
calls me brilliant for ordering a beer, says
“I like the way you think,” and smiles.
The high desert of eastern Oregon is almost there
then a final drop into trees I know, bursting green
overhead and out the window still rolling on,
the royal blue Columbia. Good God,
Where have you been? Where have I been?
For long miles, I trace her silk, I can taste her,
until I turn north at last to where the cool Salish water
sings, the stones and seaweed of my dreams.
I unpack the car and vacuum out the miles,
erasing the trail, which doesn't matter.
Kids and dogs splash as the Wenatchee horns
into its dock. Above all, the mountain, still silent.
published in My Edmonds News