Exit 185

The mile marker hadn’t changed.

The curve last hiding slope, its median sidled

with man-made forests to the middle

and nature’s wooded barrier

on the right has not changed

from the so many trips—from different cities

away from different reasons—that I had

made before. I’d gun the engine, free

from highway patrol officers, close

to home. The slope becomes

shallower, shorter. The sensations grip

my nerves as my fingernails dig

into the steering wheel: excitement

insecurity, love, separation.

At the top of the hill, the highway meanders

slightly to the right and straightens. The viaduct

before me and the fork with secret intuition

invites me to come home. The world stops

at Exit 185. The raft of concrete connecting

the lands separated by highway

is void of obstacles, yet my worldliness

is imprisoned; the world does not permeate

these borders. Two turns and I’m disturbed

at the most recent capitalist broken attempts

to modernize this microcosm—vivid signs

offering gas, thirty-one flavors, chicken, waffles—

a designer gown on a hooker. I speed

beyond them and, after a combination

of turns and straight distances, measured relief

stills my core before my long ago

dwelling-place of my youth.

When I was a girl standing outside

only the stars interrupted

the navy-violet void

two young trees appeared

as strong weeds towering

over a blend of green and tan fauna.

Tonight those trees separate my view

from the velvet sky. I’m surprised

they came from barely nothing

to exceeding my expectations.

Time did this to the trees

but what did time do to me?

Age lines my eyes and layers my body

weighs my mind and darkens my youthful

dreams with years of forlorn melancholy.

I have lived away from these woods

these woes once entrapped turned

to musings of fear unremembered.

Years interrupt my childhood from this night.

The astral light bulbs sprawl the sky, my

favorite night light casts a translucent sheet

of bright periwinkle about all I see.

The relations between earth and sky

are amiable, on one accord

and I agree with them.

My pupils widen, my vision

bullets beyond the tree limbs

into the stars, all muses of serenity.

No wild gusts of youth to blow away

my still and certain spirit. Those days

have matured to lessons, secrets of a woman.

Labels: My Writing, Poetry, Thoughts