ALONG THE LEE HIGHWAY

Stephen Gibson

Today's winds have blown petals across the park.
I find many things to worry about
But nothing matters.
Tomorrow I will drive down through Virginia
Along the Blue Ridge and into Tennessee at Bristol
Pass the speedway then dog-leg it back into the mountains
Of North Carolina.
Once from the open door of a motel room
On one of these trips a year ago
I watched the rain come on at first
Decorating the asphalt
Of the parking lot-- black dots on the car's dirty windshield
Then everything was behind a wall of rain suddenly
And totally the rain was between me and everything
And then it eased off and then
It went away. I stepped back
Up to the doorway and saw a cab flapping its wipers with
A couple of bad-ass looking rock chicks hunched over
Paying their fare outside a sorry looking nite-club on the strip.
I remember pay-phones lined up next to the ice machine
While behind me the television was replaying

One of those detective shows from the nineteen-seventies
You can always find on motel cable--
Brown and blue stock footage
Of a Los Angeles I believed was every city in America
As a child: men in leather suit coats
Producing snub-nose revolvers in discos and casinos; cars
Knocking trash cans over in the myriad alleys
Of ghetto and pursuit; and always that special soft focus
Reserved for the entrances of beautiful women or
The inducement of narcotic effect...
Freightliners and Peterbilts

Slammed by and on through
Intersections hung with blinking traffic signals trying
To get their speed again
The highway slightly
Psychedelic as I picture it now in that orange twilight
And after-rain mist ( and faint smell I don't know of
Wood smoke? ) shifting gears out past the malls
And nudie bars and hamburger joints and these motels with eyes
Watching travelers disappear with their cargo
Beneath clouds and never asking
Who would want to love us in this world?