Old Orchard Road Again

This winter there's not much to do.

He can drive till the gas runs out, walk home

on mud frozen into a sculpture of tiretracks

and hoofprints, the thud of his boots flushing

quail from the underbrush. Nobody's waiting

to scold him when he peels his socks

from a ripe blister. Birds in the rafters

stir all night like warnings he's almost forgotten.

Lie still while the doctor is talking. That window

stays shut. Don't walk out in the blinding sun.

No need to worry now, he'd rather drive

long as he can hear Hank Williams singing his faded love

over the rattle of rusty chrome. Pigs fat on nothing

but corn cobs and solitude lie straight ahead

like temptation he can't resist. One lonesome honk

of the horn and they stand up like drunks,

strewing shoats from their flabby teats. Bouncing clear

off the seat spilling its stuffing around him,

he yells out the window, "Here's mud in your eye!"

but the sows stagger off into dust his truck's churned

up so thick he can't find his way back

to the gate. Surely Hank never sang such a sad song

as wheels spinning into the sand. Damn the static!

Where's Orange Blossom Special? He strips his gears

clean as the sugar cane stalks he sucked dry

every summer and charges through: blackberry thorns

onto Old Orchard Road again. Praise be the cattle gap

clattering under him! Perched on a water trough

three girls are waving their straw hats beribboned with ivy

and broom sedge. He no longer cares why

they're waiting here, clad in their pale cotton dresses

as if it's dead summer and somehow the sun

never disappeared into their childhood.

What took you so long, they call,

climbing in back with the oil cans and greasy tools.

Look out for low limbs, he motions to them through

the rear window, grinning when he sees a dirty foot dart

under petticoats, Why should he mind

if they're not wearing stockings and black

lace-up shoes? Let them wiggle their toes

all the way to the house almost hidden

in trumpet vines. Through the broken glass

he sees a white curtain yearning toward apple trees

and as his head bows against branches closing

around them, he thinks of the birch rod

held over them all in the school room,

his sentence prayers muttered at morning devotion.

Thank you for green grass.

Thank you for clear water.

Thank you for eyes that cannot look too long at the sun.