GETTING BY

GETTING BY


In the cold regions -
in the sad and lonely
youth-killing regions,
where cheap paneling
is everyone’s answer,
the roads are arms and legs,
the hills are hips and thighs,
the fields are backs
and the destination
is the back of a head.


Here, the trucks and cars
don’t need oil and gas.
They are pushed along the roads
by young children who want
to be with their mothers.


The roll and drone
of the vehicles soothe
the ragged nerves and
relieve the sore muscles
of the mothers, who, for their
children’s entertainment, walk
back and forth for miles a day
casting stones into make-believe
streams, until they give out
on purple horsehair sofas.


With eyes closed against their pain,
the mothers are happy just to know
where their children are playing,
and fall into a deep sleep,
devoid of worry and fear.