Through fog and summer rain
you’d swear you were in Canada,
eastern Ontario or New Brunswick,
when you drive across the U.P.,
lakes and bogs and more trees
than people, spruce and popple,
maple and pine, watching for
cop cars, RVs, log trucks, moose,
listening to Niko Case,
high on coffee and Big Red gum,
chewing on your little troubles
stick by stick.
With the construction
it’ll take all afternoon
to get to the Bridge
then maybe Flint by sundown.
There’s an old man
stopped on the left shoulder
looking over his car and then
ahead on the right I see the deer
struck down dragging herself
like Christina prone and twisted
in that famous Weyth painting.
It’s too late to stop
and what could I do anyway?
Last night we found
the little black chick
who hatched last week, dying,
its guts spilt out.
You need to go, I said,
I’ll take care of this.
Smooth rock heavy
in my palm, one swift
bash, twitching, peace.
Hemmingway fished these streams,
Jim Harrison and Greg Brown too.
They say still waters run deep,
but some things
you push them down
and they just stir the muck
and bob to the surface.
Now the miles roll fast
under your wheels like years,
and slip away easier than
visions of old lovers.
I wish Dad, two years gone,
could sit here beside me.
Lightening!
Count the heart beats,
brace for the crash.
