Passing Through (Highway Poem #1)

Glass forest trickles droplets

onto northbound Vermont 9.

Entire hillsides, crystalline,

both east and west,

glisten in the barely warm.

Three miles from the town

with little shops and

beds and breakfasts where

a crossing guard halted

us for a peacoated woman

walking to church,

one mile from the covered bridge

spanning the stony creek,

between two farmhouses each

with signage promising fresh

syrup and cheddar,

I observed McKay’s Used Car Lot.

He wore a red hooded sweatshirt,

around thirty with goatee, and on a

tiny balcony, the type one

associates with a Swiss chalet

overlooking a lake, not

an architecturally nondescript house

overlooking a dozen 80,000 mile Chevys

parked over brownish snow.

He leaned on the rail, smoking a cig,

surveying his domain with his

small fire held in his lips,

feeling suave or scornful—

I cannot know.

A trap is a getaway minus choice.