Drive Out of State

long-way.jpg by George Hodan

Drive Out of State

They drove to the country one state after another

crushed under their wheels, rushing to her parents

She held the baby, nearly a toddler now

Sleeping on her lap - they had figured out

just how to facilitate this "disjointed aspect"

of their marriage - figured out just how to sustain

at the very least the friendship once felt

They left their lives in the city, just for a time

plans packed, labeled, left in cardboard boxes

eyes straight ahead visualizing the small house

on flat land, the future they would write

in the simplicity of waving fields of wheat

once again in the soft embrace of unison

Somewhere, maybe in Iowa, they slowed

on a relentlessly straight, low skied road

She lifted a stuck strand of hair from the baby's

flushed, damp, slumbering cheek

He rolled the car onto the soft shoulder

and with as much road behind them as

stretching ahead -

they stared into and

at each other

and with a silent separate sigh

The juggling ended

All of it -

Just like that

and they knew, that it did not matter

which direction they resumed

their destination was the same

Nowhere 

~

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