Free Entry 2, Week 9

Draft 3--Formally "We're All Getting Somewhere"

Jackknife

Today, I unfurl like the hem
of your favorite sweater, I forget

you don't care, like when your mother plowed
into the mailbox with her Plymouth.

A torrent of letters cascaded her hood,
like chickens flocking a trough.

I'm tired of flagging you down, reminding
you elms don’t flourish in deserts,

however deep their roots plunge,
water won’t congregate in sand.

The best jackknife I ever saw was on I-85:
hundreds of chickens skidded

the pavement, traffic jammed for miles.
It was like a pillow factory exploding.

I embroidered a pillow once with the inscription:
Please wipe your feet here. I wish I could

tighten the bolts of my four speed Huffy,
comb the streamers with my fingers. Maybe I will

scrap the bike for your birthday, become lone walkers
together. Pedaling uphill is rough

on my ulcer anyway. They say George Hincapie once biked
from Portugal to Austria in three days,

he said it was so easy it was like pedaling
in his sleep. In my sleep the desert was awash

in those feathers, all the lightness,
that airiness, floating down to the ground.

You, however, were never one for travel.