Gas Money

When it meant freedom

there was always a hand

holding out a crisp bill

and a man- grandfather,

father, friend-with an open-

road grin attached: Go

have fun- be careful-

have fun. Because

there is promise eternal

in the highway hum,

I've pocketed countless twenties:

to leave the girlfriend behind,

to get to the next job,

the next desert, the next

better-than-this-one city.

I never felt taken-always

delivered. And maybe

they knew, slipping

the bills under windshield wipers,

sloughing them off

on the front seat with an inspection

to follow: Car OK? Oil changed? -

maybe they knew

it wouldn't be better,

only different. Those words

that would've sounded

like being left behind.