Directions
____________________________________

Traffic at night in this town amazes me,
the cars in gaudy swerves crossing lanes
in front of us, so that Sean, driving, curses

fervently, and I can’t help but laugh.
Three years gone, living in the dull and flat
of the Midwest, the change is fresh,

still raw. It is late summer here, the last of it,
and autumn in Illinois, a season of pretense
for me. This driving late at night,

with the Rolling Stones loud in the car,
helps some the notion I keep, that winter
is nowhere to be seen in the leaves

which brown and fall because water’s scarce
and the earth has tilted aslant to the sun;
that winter, as much as time, can mend.

Outside the car, the high chirr of locusts
bores through at a stop light, between songs—
in that moment it’s easy to hear

the whir of the disc faint in its spin.
We’re taking the scenic route, as Sean says,
back roads and neighborhoods,

slow the whole way, early to whatever
bad movie we’ll see tonight, snickering
before the lights fall at ticket stubs

kept in his wallet, and then, in darkness,
at botched fictions, reasons we’re
the last to leave and the only ones there.

 

 

From The Resurrection of the Body and the Ruin of the World by Paul Guest, 2003

New Issues Poetry & Prose, Western Michigan University, Dept. of English,
1903 W. Michigan Ave., Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5331
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