Two Poems
by Richard Merrill
Leading Rush Hour
In the next sleeping car is madness.
A violent fist shaking to the sounds
of evangelism or Limbaugh, no doubt.
In front of me, a family circus. A dog leaps
for attention, an orange ball is tossed
father to son, and back again. Mother dangles
her cleavage. Behind me a lawyer fixes
on the drone of my taillights or fantasizes
about stealing the Mercedes from my portable
parking lot while I sleep. A truck hauling
flammable gas passes me and we exchange
peripheral waves. The car in front of her
does a quick weave, then cuts across
to its exit. The gas truck brakes, circus brakes,
I brake. Lawyer and madman brake.
The sun is in all our eyes.
Living without GPS
Run a finger up the common femoral artery
to the junction of walk and don't walk.
Leave latitude for the heart, its sextant lost
in the remains of route 66, or plot
a solution: I've got my spine, I've got
my orange crush. Broken mirrors vivisect
the man; all roads lead to Polaris or scattered
bearings; trying to find some other track side
that GPS can't; noodling in the dark, spending
time being lost between the crux and nebulas.
Steering into the long way home, finding
where found is hidden in the magnetic.
Resonant images of small intestine and appendix.
The parallax of travel where no one can run to
or from.
Richard Merrill was born in New York City in 1967. His parents moved to Colorado when he was three. Fortunately or unfortunately, they took him with. He hauls cars over-the-road for a living and currently resides in Kenosha Wisconsin with his wife of 18 years and his two-year-old Brussels Griffon. His work has appeared in Story Garden 7, Blue Collar Review, and The Legendary. He is working on his first collection of trucking related poems.