On driving toward my father’s certain death
After three weeks of national parking our way across the American west,
through diesel fumes and hickory smoke and country radio,
to the last vestiges of rodeo-girl makeup, buffalo burgers, and boots.
Walking badlands and prairie, fishing sunlit streams,
hiking purple mountains capped with summer snow.
The irony.
He insisted we go anyway,
on this great American journey,
joked that he’d survive till we got back.
And in all those phone calls home, Mom never let on.
Said he was fine, just couldn’t talk,
till yesterday, when she asked,
When you coming home?
Crossing Iowa now at 2 AM,
home to cornfields and poets, row after row.
The things we could never say I leave on the roadside.
My great American family asleep in the back,
leaving just father and son to drive through the darkness,
speeding towards morning.
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