Night Drive on I-80
Remember when you were headed west out of Wamsutter
Measuring the after midnight miles with a half-emptied sixpack
And you had the hammer down and nothing but empty up ahead?
Remember, somewhere west of Bitter Creek, you stopped
for that roughnecked renegade leaning into the wind, who told
you he was so hungry he could eat the ass off a skunk?
Remember the eatum-up truck stop neon, blazing like Christmas
with the voltage cranked and all those big buckets of bolts
blowing diesel in the parking lot ?
Remember how your roughneck pal went silent over chicken fried steak,
and you picked at a piece of pie from the Pleistocene, but the cat-eyed
waitress called you “hun” and made it all ok?
Remember dropping your new friend off at daybreak⎯highway 189
north to Diamondville⎯and how he told you to keep the shiny
side up and the greasy side down, and how you said “fer sure”
and how it was easier to believe, back then, that everyone
was a good buddy just waiting to happen?
