Three Axles Or More. {poetry}
{source}
My legs, in Joplin, Montana
dig into the deepest night,
bound to a rhythm I love
held tightly by a love I hate
receiving well,
conductor taps
transmitting melodies
each memory of her,
of him and of him,
(of them)
drifting out my open window.
Relay message
in unison voice
reminding me (as usual)
it is easier to dance at 2 a.m.
when goodbyes don’t outweigh
the ache of freedom,
her open door too alluring
for second thought.
Taillights spin, disco rapture,
my hand in her rubber glove,
time is up for contact,
she will take me
where they cannot
from the mundane
into the mundane wild
past Minneapolis,
dinnertime politeness,
fights over the remote
on a beat up couch,
responsibilities of a “good man”
what’s your location?
beyond Madison,
beyond Sunday morning obligations,
niceties of a small town,
with a quick stop in Monroe,
visitors present,
a balm to the soul
dark and bitter to the taste.
Settling easy
beside the Mississippi,
free from reminders
of those not mine
but somehow mine
as much as this
freight sliding left and right
under my ribs
break channel,
the place where it begins to surface
where the “missing them” tangles
up inside my veins.
Responsibility
without responsibility,
whispers compared to
Monday becoming Tuesday
becoming Wednesday,
the static of Joplin
unable to copy
ten years high in the sink
scraping leftovers of my youth
inside the trash, loud reminders
in peeling wallpaper
of repairs to a home
not in my name.
But this,
this sixty feet created
by the tick-tock of
relentless solitude,
mutual anticipation of our tiny fortune
we thumb through chapters
with a clean shot out,
days into pillars of exhaust
swirling about Rockford
only two hundred miles to go.
Yet, she steadies,
ears on and always steady,
a tenacious mistress,
we awake in South Bend,
all units secure
a frantic heave
from our bellies,
US-31 to the end
and finally the beginning
assignment complete,
our golden calf,
away from her I step.
Alone.
Wooden planks, shoes off,
a catwalk unfrozen in July,
Lake Michigan more like
an ocean, dashing against
each cast iron pole beneath me,
greeting me like a panting dog.
I imagine the “them” once more,
here on the pier,
hair matted, filthy with joy,
pulling me to my aching legs
“let’s run,” they beg,
“to the end,”
transmission completed,
stand by.
*****
Wynn Everett lives in Los Angeles. Her poetry has been published in The Curator, Darling Magazine, River Poets Anthology, Wilderness House Literary Review, and she is a regular contributor to Haggard and Halloo in Austin, TX.
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