There’s nothing to tell.
The countryside falls forward and back
like green-brown sheets fit across well-made beds.
I take shots through an aging aperture
yawning at mundane farmland,
seldom-changed zoning laws of lawns and property.
Mansions bursting with red, white and blue
roost like plump pigeons on narrow land strips
adjacent run-down acreage.
Dogtrot homes weather-beaten, hard-lived
showcase the hoarding instincts of Southern belles,
covered verandas overstuffed—
entire generations weatherized in clear plastic.
In a single drive-by—entire childhoods lost
and found in a shutter click and gear change.
Barns and abandoned lives
tossed between white, blue and green meadows,
flowers still wild with spring, line sagging shoulders
of aging roads far as the buzzard flies—their stories
left behind in weeds and dust.
After a full day with Rob, John and Laura,
there’s nothing to tell.
Cruising through counties, maybe a state or two,
we dismount, tired riders on the backs
of a Harley Classic and Honda Valkyrie,
cowboy-walk into motel rooms
unbuckle our leathers, pour ourselves
into plastic chairs on uneven parking lots,
watch our men wash down metal and chrome,
glean away dirt and bugs from tanks windshields
headlights—buckets and scrappy towels
compliments of the motel.
We drink Bud Lites, talk into the twilight,
hear locals line up—their after-supper sacrament—
catch whiffs of waffle cone and ice cream
and dream ourselves into an early night
to the burrs and clicks of crickets and frogs.
Early morning—coffee and weather checks,
we head for back roads on the lookout
for deer moose bear—breathe in
the sweet sourness of green,
musky scent of decay,
the floral enticement of fertility
singing out for renewal
in a language seldom heard.
This poem first appeared in The Beauty of Elsewhere (Hidden Brook Press, 2020).
—
Lynn Tait is an award-winning poet/photographer residing in Sarnia, Ontario. She’s the author of the poetry collection You Break It You Buy It (Guernica Editions, 2023). Her poems have appeared in Contemporary Verse 2, Vallum, FreeFall, Literary Review of Canada, Prairie Fire, Anti-Heroin Chic, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Muleskinner Journal, Last Leaves, and in over 100 North American anthologies.
