I
When I’m driving far from home
I always jump the gun, and exit too early,
or I compensate and drive past my turn.
Regardless of how, I always miss
from excitement or my attempt to curb it.

When I drive myself back,
once I pass through the tunnel that marks where foreign lands become home
I always go too fast.
I’ve gone this way many times before.
No one patrols it.

I cannot curb my want.

———

II
I’ve known nothing more lonely than driving home,
on I-40, through the desert, at 2 AM.
Even my conscience is asleep.
Every gas station: a haven.
“One forty-eight.” The price of my “gourmet” coffee.
Also the friendliest words I’ve heard in an eternity.
15 minutes have passed. Or maybe 15 miles.
Or maybe both.
But here I am, alone at 2:15
on the long, long road. Driving,
going for no reason.
Not even the thought of home comforts me.

I jotted some quick verse down on an envelope I had in my car one night.

1.
In backalleys I wander
which, in this town,
is a challenge
—we have no backalleys

The moon is gibbous
were I sitting how many thousand miles to the east;
tomorrow in time,
the moon would be full

But from my alley, here,
now,
       I cannot tell if it is waxing or waning.
And for as long as I sit,
it shall never be full.

 
2.
In the act of mapping a territory
it ceases to become wilderness.

To name this
would be to destroy it.