Our road trip memories align
as we pass a Farmall tractor,
fire engine red and rooted
roadside in a field of alfalfa,
a relic washed by cloudburst,
a workhorse dried in sunshine,
arrested air stack,
rusted crank case,
supple spider webs
in chaste wheel wells—
immutable old machine
somehow extinguishing
in the reflected acreage
of the rear view mirror.

He nurses his coffee, by himself most days,
Occasionally with the one or two others
Constituting the bulk of the clientele of the diner
(Low-slung building both faceless and nameless
Although those who remember a day
When the village was at least borderline prosperous
Still refer to it as “Kitty’s Place”,
Though its namesake has been dead and gone some two decades)
One of the few going concerns which implausibly remain,
Seemingly through nothing more than sheer inertia,
In the drab little downtown along Canton Street.

He languishes over his cup for as long as the mood hits him,
There being no discernible reason to hurry
(Indeed, the diner itself, once open before sunrise
Now dark and silent until a leisurely seven-thirty or so)
His place not really a working farm these days,
Just a smattering of beef cattle
(Milking and stripping out more than he can manage now)
And what acreage of corn he can get in the ground.
Eventually, he totters out of the front door,
One sleeve of his shirt rolled and pinned up
(Its former occupying member removed
After the incident with the ancient and malevolent corn binder),
Moving toward his truck with an all-but-one-legged gait,
His left-leg jigsaw-puzzled
By an overturned Farmall some time back
(Most days he reckoned he’d tipped the tractor
By failing to shift his balance to accommodate driving one-armed,
Though if he was in a black enough mood he’d put it down
To an old Iroquois curse placed on the entire St. Lawrence valley.)

One could say, if he was a poet
Or some other **** philosophical fool,
That these partial sacrifices served
To ward off some even more awful finality.
He would have none of that, of course—in his own cosmology
The gods and demons most likely have bigger fish to fry,
And, as to the prospect of some inexorable wreck and ruin,
He is of the opinion that what he was given up to this point
Is both ample and sufficient.

She had gone on hiatus from her terminal felicity,
The languid lassitude having progressed from ennui to irritant
(As one second-tier deity in the pantheon bitterly noted
Immortality is just another word for ******* monotonous)
Coming to this plane sans the flourish and fol-de-rol
Normally accompanying earthly descents,
Having arrayed herself in such raiments
As seemed apropos in such a place,
Tresses tucked away under a stained Farmall cap,
Figure somewhat obscured by a hoodie and camo pants
(Yet drawing more than her share of too-long glances,
Their progenitors sensing something
They hadn’t apprehended before,
The provenance of what stood before them
But dimly understood yet clearly a thing apart)
And she spent an indeterminate time in that scruffy burg,
One-block main drag footed by the schoolmarm-staid courthouse,
The gas wells and second-tier chain-store concerns,
Chance encounters with doe and bobcat on the few side streets,
Hence returning to her eternal domicile
As inauspiciously as she had came,
And if one of her compatriots deigned to show interest
In respect to her time among her lessers
(The inhabitants of the terra firma
Generally regarded with a dollop of noblesse oblige
And a considerable helping of scornful disinterest)
She would become somewhat taciturn, hesitant
Characteristics almost unknown in this stratum
And she would speak, almost in wonder,
Of how those she had sauntered among,
Saddled with their inherent imperfection,
The constraints yoked upon who they were
And the realm they inhabited
(Even the landscape, glaciers gifting them
A higgledy-piggledy of lakes, dumpling-esque hills
Over-dramatically christened the Endless Mountains
Short on true grandeur or majesty)
Yet still cognizant, still struggling to attain
An ideal of beauty which they could never be privy to,
And for some time afterward it was not uncommon
To see upon her unspeakably striking visage
A faraway look bordering on discontent.