That night in the motel I listened
to the sounds of the highway
and the ragged, decrepit rain,
looking in the only mirror,
the face of a stranger staring back,
taut and slightly tarnished,
like the knuckles of a fist,
and thought about the miles,
how far I’d get tomorrow,
to you, maybe, in Grass Lake,
the heartland, but the next morning
when I started out, it was still dark,
and the maps in the glove box
were old and of the wrong places.