Читать книгу Run the Red Lights - Ed Skoog - Страница 13

Driving

Like a diplomat with an assassin

closing in, I never take a second

way home, draw my string figure

around Topeka streets, stairstep

and spiral through neighborhoods

split and stitched across railroad,

highway, and river. I’ve never known

anyone’s body as well as I learn

each turn the turn an idea makes,

luck-damaged and sprawling grid

which compels me to connect

each street with bouquet of song

unspooling in the passenger seat.

Beyond the city, I want to hear the whole

concept album, drive to college towns

for better radio, remote chapels, the ice

cream store north with its one

pinball machine featuring Kiss.

The travel placemat from before the interstate

recommends scenes along Highway 24

including Topeka’s Ira Price Cafe

east of the cloverleaf. Breakfast is any hour,

chicken is a specialty. It opens in time

for church, air-conditioned and modern.

People in the petite houses of Kansas

look out windows and nothing