hitching a ride

clutching onto my singed hair for dear life

never knowing when it’d fly me out the pickup door

into this free-for-all

merry go round

so as another gratis ride comes to an end

so another begins

this fella from Chicago who had some room,

was off to see his wife

“after 21 years of silence” he told me,

“headin up to Madison”

cause she called him “honey” over the phone,

admitted he’s only wanted to fish all these years,

but for love

or guilt

or madness

he was off to take his lumps,

speeding down the studded bleak sentient eve of the unknown,

smoking Luckies down to the butt

while layin down prayers to his 94,000 mile Chevy,

sayin:

“take me safe, mama, to the end of the line”

and I was flipped right there with him

right there,

and gassed out

all through those flat dense green dells of Wisconsin

all the way to their very end,

inhaling these stories of a life lived,

my twenty years still unfolding

yet impatiently rushing on

way distant to his,

like a trip back and forth to New York in 5 hours

to rendezvous, then argue, only desert an old girlfriend,

so beat with honesty we were

perhaps the day will come when I’ll be found

doing absolutely anything for a sign to fall down,

quit my search

while still alive,

ultimately to surrender to Miss Patience

but God am I hungry now,

here in the middle of another fugitive Midwest night,

with only an empty coffee mug

a sleeping bag

and this notebook

to look forward to

Minneapolis

6/29/73