No. 9

Summer 2005

Crosses staked beside the highway carry
first names and painted dates. They glow,
drift from view, a Kim, Rick, or William.
Some wear the signs of upkeep, fresh
paint and flowers, fluorescent ribbons pinned
to the grave miles away from the grave.
I can see a family brake at the cross,
stopping to correct its fatigued lean

into the climbing weeds. Maybe they drive
between this soft ditch and the family plot
because point A and point B provide
the longest distance between loss.
This feels shallow, me speculating
on a family’s grief, when I have had no grief.
I have no wife, no children, and no tragic friends
I discuss with the completeness of a book.

The first death finds you between deaths
forever, a chilly and silent stretch
where the living bundle up in movement.
I once thought of pulling over to kneel
before a roadside cross, to touch the weathered wood
of someone named Susan, sorry she was
so young, or that I drive for enjoyment,
often with no destination.

Yet even in this fantasy I knock on the wood
instead, paying homage to the idols
of superstition. Murmuring beneath
good intention is the unspectacular mantra,
anyone but me, anyone but me.
I felt sorrow for Susan.
That said, I believe the distance
between here and there is every day.

Copyright 2005, Chuck Rybak

nidus is an online publication supported by the Writing Program at the University of Pittsburgh's English Department.