Down the long driveway: cotton mist.
Across the leaf-stamped street, a gully,
an avalanche of red and yellow,
a rotted canoe on the damp creek bed.
Traffic in upstate New York. The rain
comes quietly, but for miles before them
cars have stopped, in shock, like chickens.
Every radio station spews static. In the driver's seat
he bites his cracked lips, harder
with every braking moment. She wants him
to stop. Off the side of the highway
a mallard sails through slick weeds. He says
he will not stop. The white pill is stuck
in her throat.
The sandy shoulder of the road has flooded.
They get where they are going.
The drive home is blind, the roads reflective,
the stereo silent. She thinks of the hopeful,
abandoned canoe, that by now
it must be drowned.
photograph by flickr user mysimplesundaymorning
