ROUTE 1 SUMMER 1954
Long tunnels of night
Through the sweet, sulfur air
The road always narrower
“Are we there?”
Spanish moss dripping
from pine trees, dropping
on windshields.
“Witches hair,” I’d hisssss
to my brothers jammed in
the back of the station wagon,
eyes white in the dark.
”Don’t scare the boys,” cautions
my mother, as she turns
shadowy in the front seat.
Traveling through Georgia
All night.
The green glow
of the dash, comforting
as the shine-in-the-dark
Virgin at home.
Once we saw a negro man, pulled
in a cart by a brown and white goat.
The man had no legs, only stumps.
His pants folded neatly under him.
We children stared.
Around his neck, a sign
One Dollar a Picture.
He had a wide, clear face
coffee with cream
Like Harry Belafonte
Broad chest and red
kerchief knotted around his neck.
My father snapped a picture and gave
him money. He smiled
But the snapshot later caught
the saddest eyes.
“I see something you don’t see.”
Counting cows.
Counting cars.
Counting houses.
And the Burma Shave signs
Always with a message.
Endless crushed Crayolas
GI Joe comix books
Brothers sprawled like casualties
Mouths open
Fists grubby and half clenched.
Driving through Georgia.
Once, hungry, we stopped at a market
to buy food. Rushing
my father and I got two pounds of baloney,
a gallon of cider and
two boxes of frozen strawberries.
Outside the town, we pulled over,
by the side of the road for lunch.
Starting to make sandwiches,
my mother groaned. “Oh, no.”
Remembering, it’s Friday.
We couldn’t eat, not meat,
on a Friday.
And the cider, the gallon of it, vinegar
grabbed in haste
by my father thinking
it was juice behind the picture of the apple.
The strawberries, though, were just right
swimming in their sugar slush.
Coming to this spot to eat, a short
way back, we saw a negro man and boy
fishing on a bridge, lines straight down
into the brackish water.
After the strawberries, my father said, “Let’s give them these.”
I came along, walking fast.
They had long poles with no reels.
Looked up, startled, when my father said,
holding out the baloney and the vinegar,
“Would you like these?
We can’t use it and the meat will spoil.”
They ran.
We walked back,
got in the car,
continued.
“I see something you don’t see.”
Counting cows.
Counting cars.
Counting houses.
And the Burma Shave signs
Always with a message.
Comments