Conversation with US-95
I drive north, wondering
about the first boy I took to meet my
parents, driving 80 mph in my 2003 Subaru
flying past the slow lives of farms and
greenhouses not even 100 yards from
the graveled shoulder and brown pineneedles
we didn’t talk much, he
and I, on that trip only listened to
the hum of the engine hugging the winding
corners, but maybe we
listened to some music that
I kept quiet enough for the
potential of conversation
yet it was mostly just the
trying sounds of the car
making its ascent into the mountains
into the mountains, where the frost still clung on
outside of Potlatch, just after the rest-stop,
I told him I was nervous and that
I hoped my family would like him
and asked if he wanted to take my dogs
on a walk to see the waterfall of the dam
which was fully open during the March
weekend we’d be there, I slid into
the passing lane, the cars behind me getting
smaller with the hill where it goes back to one
lane so straight I realize how fast I’m going
but the nerves don’t let me slow down,
it was windy and my hands shook
in time with grasses ahead.
The boy next to me,
a misty reflection in the window, stared forward, unmoving
perhaps thinking of me but perhaps
wondering if I’m going too fast. I
could never really tell what he was thinking,
but I never thought it was of anything significant,
like what the lives were like in
these small towns hidden
away from our world, or
Speeding into something dangerous
that we were too young to understand or
if I’ll have someone to be there
when I get hurt.
Today I’m going slower, my passenger seat empty,
the road telling me I’ll get where I’m going, no
need to rush over the Palouse hills or
around Plummer’s forested corners until
arriving at the final descent, the lake’s shore,
a passing logging truck, debris
clouding my vision, my hands still shake
in the wind and I still wonder what lives
among the fields and swaying pines.
I look over and catch my own reflection,
built of steel and quartz against
the amber seas capped with
emerald trees past Tensed, wishing I
could’ve pulled over and
saw for myself.