Photography, 24” x 32”, Framed

Driving West

By Michelle Pruitt

We’re driving west, running away 

to where the clouds slide one way

and the flat earth the other,

tall grass whispering

asphalt singing

radio voices warning us

not to go home.

We’ll pull down the windows

paint pop songs on the wind.

We’ll dive into the shimmering pool

where highway turns to sky.

We’ll get lost in the blue dusk glow 

where time cracks open and eternity spills in.

There is a story about a girl 

who fell asleep for a hundred years;

woke up in a briar patch

with a strange man in her bed.

That’s not how this story ends.

The truth is 

there is no bed, 

no sleep, 

no kiss to keep.

There is only this unblazed trail,

a faint trace of blue like a vein beneath the skin.