“The windshield wipers wipe, homesickness one way, wanderlust the
other, back and forth.”
-Galway Kinnell, “Sheffield Ghazal 4: Driving West”
1. Illinois
Oil derricks spring up in the cornfields,
the prairie begins to rise and fall;
Illinois is trying hard
to shed the winter gray.
Countless times I’ve crossed the state:
Lake Michigan to the Mississippi,
Chicago to Champaign.
Today we go farther south
than ever before.
In Metropolis, close to where the Ohio
and the Mississippi meet, they’ve built
a bronze Superman statue
to stand for Truth, Justice, the American Way
and the tourist dollar.
2. Kentucky
The sun is gone
and morning will find us at the gulf.
We cut across the corner of Kentucky
in the dark. Mike and Rob
watch Bill and Ted in back
and Ryan has taken the wheel.
I sit with my feet on the dash
Reading One Hundred Years of Solitude by flashlight.
3. Tennessee
Outside Nashville, I search the dial
for a basketball game. Intermingled
with static, booming preacher’s voice and country twang
we can barely pick up West Virginia vs. Wake Forest
drifting through the air from Cleveland.
Jon and Jennie call to say
they missed the exit; they’ll meet us in Alabama.
While everyone gets out to take pictures
of the Parthenon replica we searched the city for,
I lean forward in my seat
listening through the static
to the double overtime finish.
4. Alabama
After a rest stop near Huntsville
we hit a wall of fog
that stays with us through the night.
I’m at the wheel and can’t see
twenty feet in front of my face.
I try to follow the cars ahead
but lose their taillights in the fog, that lifts
in a pale blue, watercolor dawn.
5. Florida
We drove five states
to spend five days
in a seaside motel
one hundred yards off the Gulf of Mexico.
The morning we arrive
we see dolphins swimming just offshore.
While we lay in the sand
to make up for our sleepless night
children play nearby and our skin
get this spring’s first touch of sun.