A Night-Time River Road

The car bore us along.

We didn't know who we were

Or where we were going to.

Somebody must know,

Somebody in the car,

Must know where we were going,

Beside the dark river,

Where we were going to.

All silent in the car,

We sat staring ahead.

Where were the lights of a bar,

A gas station, a house?

Out in the dark the river

Was telling itself a story.

There in the car nobody

Could tell where we were going.

TO SALLY

Now we've been sitting up all night,

Waiting to find out

What the story is.

I watch your beautiful patient face:

It's as if you didn't know

All that you know.

Your mother in mortal danger, you speak

Of something funny that happened.

What will have happened,

Maybe, before your story's finished?

Good people are punished

Like all the rest.