An elderly woman gave excessive thanks for placing
Her suitcase in the overhead rack as the Miami-bound
Amtrak left Penn Station. Teenagers wearing
Christians for Nixon T-shirts gathered in the lounge car
To watch American Graffiti on the big screen.
For a time I minded my own business reading Pale Fire
But then the blackberry-flavored brandy I had been swigging
Called me to the baggage car to check out the red clay earth
Of North Carolina under moonlight and to kiss it deeply
With an axe pulled from its clamps.The following morning the judgment face of the elderly woman
And the kids for Christ cowering as if you were the devil.In Key West, troopers issued a tear gas caress,
Driving me from behind the weeping willow
Where I had been spending time alone
Nipping bourbon from a wide-mouth bottle.
Seeking refuge in the ocean, a girl and I
Swam among the barracuda and made love
On a pier while a trooper shone a flashlight from his car.
Later we ran barefoot up and down Duval Street
Trying to blend with the tropical air. In my
Rented room the girl poured her whole life story
Into my one good ear, how she had come south
To visit and now was living in a tent. “You are surely
The remotest man I ever met,” she said.Car lot pennants snapping in the breeze.
Loggins and Messina singing “Please Come to Boston.”
An Olivetti portable to make sense of my life and speed
To keep it going. Something like that.July 2004