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.