The Rapture
High over the desert
up in the empty blue
a single contrail
F14 out of Edwards
down below the highway lies prostrate in the heat
Interstate 90
straight-line for Albuquerque
one lone car
heading anywhere….
nowhere….
everywhere….
Natural born killers looking for a thrill
zen poets
on the road
Bonnie and Clyde
Thelma and Louise
Jack and Neil
Captain America and Billy
Sailor and Lula
Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters
Out on Highway 61
the Ohio Turnpike
Route 66
I-40
the Santa Barbara Freeway
hit the coast then turn around
and head back to the other one
throw away your watch
pull into an Amoco to
buy food and gas and take a shit
sleep and screw in the car
you know you’re half way
when you cross the Mississippi
if you have to
if you want to
rob beg deal kill
just keep going
driving past the cornfields
the factories
the mountains
the small towns
Checotah, Oklahoma
Rawling, Tennessee
Irondale, Missouri
Pine Cliffs, Wyoming
driving past the stranded lives
the tailored passions
misfit or mystic
outlaw or knight errant
behind you lies the dark labyrinth of the American dream
ahead the highway stretches away to the vanishing point
ahead wait a thousand squalid endings
but for the moment
there is the driver’s shirt sleeve flapping
in the open window
and the rapture.