He was a Career Man
and a Red Cross Volunteer
and his life read just like
a bottom-shelf dime-store novel
with all the characters stuck
in all their own little worlds
and the two-tracks tying their
countryside together would freeze,
every winter, and split,
right at the seams,
but he drove a giant pickup truck
and didn’t abide by snow-drifts
or stuck tires, and the folks he knew
hardly knew him at all, hiding
behind kitchen cabinets and
dead-locked storm doors. No,
they won’t be joining him.
Not any time this lifetime.
So he drives to town each night
and crawls inside a bottle,
waiting for the dawn to break
it open so he can drive
back home again.