Detour

Detour

for Sue

Up and down, the far hills come to me as if summoned by a time machine from the speed-unlimited future, and, on lonely stretches, by night, I hit the high beams and drive in a domed glow, hoping to be taken for a flying saucer travelling low in the long dark of the cartoon map's flyover country, wild hares leaping. Eventually, I stop for food at the Roadkill Diner that I find at least once in every state. I stoke up and drive on, warm in the cold weather of a constant late autumn, my body comfortable, forgettable, so that my mind can sit atop the car like a beacon, a blue light with a soft, humming siren, the streamline of wind, while my hands steer the roadshapes, and see, occasionally, along the road a dead possum, rabbit, skunk or squirrel, and, once, lately, the much-impacted carcass of a deer, the road spatter-painted a raging red, and look back to be sure of what I have seen, and then ahead again, which in my case, on this particular trip, diverted, detoured by cell-phone, is to the burial of a friend, as I enter her state with brakes down for a speedtrap, and a black and white patched and ribboned sky overhead.