Rest Area
I sucked and sucked
but the pipe was clogged
so finally I poked out
the bowl with one of my
housekeys,
scratched the resin off the screen
the clog
and reloaded it. Then I
struck the lighter
and sucked it down my throat the whole blob
like a bolt of spirit. It happened
fast; strange travelers out there maybe
were wanting to use the toilet. There had been
a van parked and another car.
Came out of the clammy dim cell out
into the bright hot wet sunlight
blinking, sweating, and
my parents were right there
chained to me forever
the car was right there
my dad had driven right up
to the very edge of the little
brown hut
up onto the gravel
"There are these nasty little
flies around here that like to
get on your head," said my mom as I
got in. "I know, one just landed
on my neck. It bit me...stung me."
"Yeah," she said darkly.
Driving away I
noticed we were the only ones there now
all the others had left. I'd been in there a
long time
trying to get a good hit.
My dad drove right up to the
very back of some farm equipment
trundling crablike
up the highway and said
"Fuck!...Jesus Christ...why don't these
assholes drive on the dirt?"
in his weary angry way
then
pulled around it
in the oncoming lane
to get back in front.
He'd been doing it all day,
he raced up to them
eager to suffer.
It wasn't making me mad anymore,
was just funny and said: in some way we'd all
outgrown each other, but there we were:
the Family... going down the road. All one.
I thought: At least he didn't honk his horn.
By now I was high.
I sat there
humming songs
just under the
road noise
(of road rushing,
tumbling under us),
sat there
miles away
right there. It was nice.
Soon
I started getting very zenlike: a fool before God
On the rubbery surface, armed surely by
patience and timing all
zenlike, a nice calming
wave out of nowhere. Before I knew it,
I'd killed one of the flies with a
single swift blow
of my special karate
and severed a wing from the trunk.
It quivered, a miracle, delicate
there on my wrist for a second, this too
very zenlike. "I killed one," I said.
"Good," said mom. She was proud.
Of course
I had my problems too
but I won't go into them
here.
Miles and miles of flat
green wide endless prairie
cows rolling in black mud
next to the road