Turnpike

It was a hole, a levelled, paved, black, white hole,

A green hole, a blue hole, grass, sky, bill-boards, air

And we were in the hole, -into the air, trees

Grass... into what were the trees, the sky, in us.

And we were in the air, the hole that went through

Itself.

All around us there was what we were

Passing through, inside, inside, inside ourselves.

And the hole was humming, clear, laned, green and paved '

With black stripes. And there was nothing, the minutes,

Miles when you thought of them, when they made you them,

The Buick, the speed, the dead skunks at the skunk-

Crossing, the deer, -I pressed down on the horn,

My hand became a fist, became a sound, a hole

At the end of my wrist, braked, and the thing was dead.

* * *

So, said Death, the deer, sitting there, between us,

With the great, white butterfly, -and we were off,

Riding through air, through trees, through grass . . . and we were

In the hole, and over the hole, and the hole

Went on forever, into the trees, grass, the sky

That was there, within us, paved, black, white, a rock

A ghost, a Buick-thing, turnpike . . . a token.