Taking the old gold Mustang out on the backcountry roads. It’s older than I am but with decidedly more energy. The cassette tapes rattling around on the floorboard are all country music but the radio stations from the nearest town spit and crackle as I turn the dial so I grab a random handful and pop one in. The owner of the car said not to take it over 75—something needs to be replaced on the front end—and the sign says 55, but the car wants to go faster; I can feel it willing my foot down, begging for more gas. On an open stretch of emptiness the pedal touches the floor and I watch the speedometer with morbid fascination…65…70…The front passenger wheel starts vibrating a little too hard, but I don’t let off the gas…75…The car wants to know how fast it can go…80…I tell myself that I will turn back at the next crossroads but they pass in an unconsidered blur…85…Every curve leads to another…90…I finally understand the thrill of speed…95…I turn up the volume and sing along. Yes Garth, I also have friends in low places and you know what? They have faster cars than friends elsewhere. Naomi asks the same question that has been on my mind for weeks, “Baby, why not me?” I wonder if she ever got her answer…I lose my nerve just shy of 100 and I can feel the car’s disappointment as I back off the accelerator. I pull into the boarded-up driveway of an old strip mine and sit for a moment. The cows in the field across the street look at me. I look at them. I take a picture. I put the car into gear and back out onto the old highway, heading in the direction I just came from. The engine growls at me and I comply, even as I realize that we have both developed a taste for something dangerous.

Headspace: a record of my thoughts as I drive a big ass truck across two states by myself.

-Why didn’t I get to drive the Mustang? I don’t care if the tags are three years out of date.

-Why is the sun so fucking bright? I get it, you’re a big ball of fire!

-If every road leads me back to you, then why the fuck am I still in the car?

-If the welding machine slides out of the open tailgate and squishes someone behind me I am going to be really pissed.

-If the welding machine crashes through the cab of the truck and squishes me I am going to be really pissed.

-West Virginia is really, really pretty. And why are all the houses so tall and skinny?

-I just ate at a Waffle House. A Waffle House, for chrissake.

-I would kill for a salad and a glass of water.

-I need a shower—no, a bath. In witch hazel.

-Wait, what state am I in?

-I both feel and smell like the bottom of an ashtray—at a Waffle House, circa 1987.

-Ashland? How are we in North Carolina? Oh, that’s Ashville…my geography sucks.

-I never thought I would hear myself say that I’m glad to be going to Kentucky.

-I’m on the historic Kentucky bourbon trail!

-I can’t believe coal mining is a thing people still do, it seems so Dickensian.

-Pink sky and blue mountains at sunset.

-Bird shit or bug guts?

-I like to be able to see the road in front of me, both literally and metaphorically.

-Cresting a hill at dusk, it feels like we’re driving into the sky.

 

Chemical Dependency*

 

If, like the girl in the poem,

my soul is in the shape of a square,

as I suspect it is because I can

sometimes feel it riding inside me,

pressing against the cities of my interior

like a caged animal, ranging and wary,

attempting to bisect me on the lateral plane

like an illustration in an anatomy book,

incessantly questioning and

demanding answers I cannot supply.

If the square is what sings at the

thrill of chaos and the bubbling

endorphins that come with strife,

can I blame my bad decisions on it

so that I don’t have to accept responsibility

for a life of stagnation, credit card

debt, and loving unwisely?

If the square that is my soul

is addicted to trouble and heartache,

is it my fault that I have to sit on my hands

to keep from holding yours?

 

 

[*Note: “the girl in the poem” refers to the poem “She Considers the Dimensions of Her Soul” by Young Smith. It is collected in the book Strange Attractors: Poems of Love and Mathematics.

4-10-13

I’m sitting on a hill behind the house watching the bonfire burn in the hollow below, listening to the crickets in the tall grass at one end of the yard and the frogs in their pond at the other. The birds have gone to sleep. The broken down trailer house and decrepit camper van next to its pile of old tires. The burned out shed just beyond the light of the fire, alive with shadows. Two black cats with white boots dart about looking for prey. In the week I’ve been here spring has come. The trees have some buds and a stand of them along the property line has acquired an explosion of white blossoms that drift about like snowflakes when the wind blows. The contents of the fire, a misspent life. A german shepherd wanders across the yard and stops in front of me. We are on eye level. He looks at me. I look at him. We don’t say anything. Then, based on some criteria of which I am unaware, he decides that I am a friend and runs happy laps around me, stopping to lick my face. Then he lays down next to me, insinuating his head under my hand for proper ear scratching, and settles down to watch the fire with me. I wonder who he belongs to. As I watch the flames I ponder the nature of fire. The flames and their coals smoldering below. The fires of passion. According to Yi-Fu Tuan in Space and Place, we are born with a fear of falling, but fear of fire has to be learned. The hard way…Fear of falling into the fire? The flames are eye-catching, they look flashy and dangerous, but it’s the coals you have to look out for, waiting to catch you unaware. I am afraid that I am playing with fire–coals–the smoldering remains of a teenage passion I believed long dead. But I can’t help but admire the way he reaches in, unafraid, to stoke the dying flames higher, nonchalantly shaking off the sparks landing on his arms and chest. My shadow from the top of the hill looms larger than life, a Titan. There were two of us, but now I am alone, my own Atlas. The earth supporting me even as I carry it on my shoulders. My white skin glows orange in the night.

I go back and forth between

the house and the trailer parked next to it,

making breakfast, half in one,

half in the other.

Yogurt and a tangerine for me.

Sausage, eggs and white toast for him,

not exactly healthy,

but a step up from his usual morning fare

of Red Bull, cigarettes, and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.

I crack eggs into the pan and scramble them in

sausage grease. I butter the toast.

I peel my tangerine and a bit of juice

drops onto my bare foot. I don’t wipe it off.

My tongue sings at the first slice,

starving for sustenance after days

of truck stops and drive-thru windows.

I open a can of caffeine and carry it

and the plate to him in the back yard.

He has been outside doing “man’s work”

since dawn, carefully climbing over me

in the cramped but cozy bedroom nook,

letting me sleep, more deeply every night

and not troubled by dreams.

But I rise earlier every morning, early

enough to feed the birds and make breakfast,

stopping now and then to jot down a line or two

and hope that he has grown out of the habit of

reading my journal like when we were kids

because I have a feeling that he would

not appreciate having become a character

in my fictions.

Early on a cold Kentucky morning

I sit on the porch huddled in an old sweatshirt

that smells faintly of grease and

another woman’s perfume

–I know better than to ask whose–

I am smoking a cigarette

and drinking warm Pepsi from a coffee cup.

Not my usual breakfast, to be sure,

but “when in Rome,” as the sayings goes…

 

The woman who used to live here

fed the birds every morning

and although she has been

gone for a cycle of seasons

they still expect their breakfast.

On a shelf in the pantry among

dusty jars and tins and

souvenir mugs and glasses

I find a tub of bird seed,

probably stale but I doubt

they will mind.

And so, before I sit down to

my own country breakfast,

I throw a few handfuls of

broken corn and sunflower seeds

into the front yard, only recently cleared

of a year’s worth of wind-blown trash,

decayed leaves and broken branches.

 

The crows come first,

wary but adventurous, never

forgetting I am there, turning

their backs to me as they take

the choicest bits.

The starlings are next,

with their yellow beaks and spotted suits,

hopping about and feasting,

not brave enough to show me

their backs.

Last are the chickadees with

darkly lined eyes and flashes

of white tail feathers—the silly tarts of the avian world.

They dither about, nervous and excited,

forgetting I am there until one

lands at my cold, bare feet and startles,

scattering the flock.