By: Samantha Wright
There is sky-blue Chevy carving its way across
the American summer. I’m right behind it. I follow
until it’s a parade of pageantry and gallant waves.
I long to swim in the Pacific Ocean, to swim to Hawaii,
but I am still on a dusty road behind the sky-blue Chevy.
We both pull into a hotel bragging about a vacancy, and
pretend we have not been traveling
the same road at the same pace.
In the hotel office, the receptionist smokes like its 1973,
her heart-shaped mouth heavy with a cigarette.
The sky-blue Chevy driver is obviously unhinged, his eyes
have the look of a long-closed window pried open.
I say nothing. I get up early to leave while the air is still soft.
I drive as though I am the one on a cracked pedestal now,
my laughter is bristly as it makes its wanton escape,
yet, somehow, the sky-blue Chevy is in front of me again.
It feels personal. A few miles in and he turns
off towards Reno, and that’s just fine, but I also think,
Good-bye! a little bit sadly. We had a love-hate relationship.
The road is long, and the street signs find my hubris ridiculous.
“There is no true destination,” they say. “The journey is the thing.”
A mirage of water and heat waits for me. Strange miracle, science.
I drive on, searching for a new path,
searching for reasons. I realize I know nothing.
I look for the sky-blue Chevy.
I miss having something to follow.
Samantha Wright lives in Western Washington. Her poetry has been featured by many incredible online and print journals, including Cathexis Northwest Press. Her forthcoming chapbook will be published by Philadelphia's Moonstone Arts Center.