#poetim

[image description: a screenshot of a poem that goes:

Kept thinking, On our way out of that Two-lane town, Head pressed all tired against The cold glass of the window where I, Myself, reflected back half-formed, Like maybe I was just as real As that ghost my daddy was chasing after.

Kept thinking About that oak standing, Uncertain guardian, In the courtyard of some No-name school, That won’t remember me come next semester, Though I fit right in, with no name,  Myself.

There had been a storm, Maybe in March, or May, or even April, Though the letter M fits better for this purpose; More like a storm. Anyways, there came a storm, Like there often does, in these sorta towns; Ripped up chunks of the very asphalt We traveled in on, and tossed them bodily All over the place.

But that tree, That big, aching thing That watched me during half-hearted recesses And stood, solemn, when I beat my knuckles bloody Against a boy older ‘n me For daring to call my dead momma ugly. That tree, that did not judge me, For all my bones and blood and history, Was no paved road, and did not break Under the onslaught of the storm.

I found myself unsurprised Come morning after, when the tree Still stood in that empty courtyard. For just the month before — Some other two-lane town, Some other no-name school — I remember learning about the roots of such big things, And how they hold things to the earth, And how they kiss the earth, And how they rest inside the earth, too, like some joining of bodies.

So of course that old oak stood, afterwards, And did not mind the sharp and angry wind and even drank up the rain With its coital roots pressed deep into the earth, And never once considered falling, splintered in that tempest. For its roots held it firm, held it steady, held it strong and In place. Like it ought to be. Like it always had, for years and years even, To grow that size, and To grow to that level of severe, kind, un-judgement.

And I, Myself, Forehead cool with the damp condensation Of that ghost-mirror window, Father beside me and Brother behind me and Baby all around and everywhere about me, Kept thinking, as we drove outta those town’s far limits.

Spinning wheels don’t grow roots And neither does the spinning barrel of a loaded pistol, And neither does a house burned down And neither does A nameless boy who sits shotgun, Father beside him chasing a ghost.

I kept thinking, Leaving that town and Leaving that courtyard oak.

I’ve never seen roots like that before.

—timothy l.l.s.h.

[image description: a poem that reads

I guess the thing they don’t really tell you– Between all the Fridays and blood and a-hundred-miles-to-empty– Is that there’s nothin’ lonelier than the Road.

Had no one to tell me, myself. Cradle to crib to passenger seat of a car Don’t give you much time to learn About the lonely ways of someone with more highway under their skin Than soul.

No one ever told me. No one ever told me what happens when your daddy leaves, And your baby brother leaves, And you’re leaving too.

Always leavin’ the places behind you, But never escaping.

Sometimes I think about telling someone. Warning them maybe, Or maybe just trying for some half-hearted half-desperate conversation.

I never do, though.

Just pile the change haphazard on the counter for some Overworked waitress to collect, ‘Cause if it’s on the counter then I don’t have to worry about our hands Making contact And piercing to somewhere inside my highway-lonely-soul.

And I’ll toss a thanks for the meal over my shoulder, And she’ll call me honey with a gentle voice, Like she knows already, how the Road gets.

Like she knows I’ll be curling up in the backseat again tonight And trailing a hand over my own jaw,

Just to feel the touch of a stranger.

I think there’s a bit of highway inside us all, sometimes.

—timothy l.l.s.h.