How like a map your headstone looks.
The veins flow, pulsing with traffic.
The blue is the blue of back road oaks
winding past cattle-grates and mud.

I see our Summer evenings now
flattened like a AAA guide,
our path to the reservoir smoothed down
on the clean kitchen table.

When I was entranced by the rise of dust
behind our tires on a weekend
picking blackberries, you said trust
what’s behind, but look in front.

You tried to get me to stop and see.
Even in the park, you
dropped pennies and nickels for me
to find. Now I know all the roads

like I knew the many lines on your face,
yet the back country fades.
A black limousine noses itself
from the cemetery parking lot.

Every Oakdale country sign I pass
looks the same. Every crossroad
jogs my memory, but long past
the day you lost my name

in fog, still you went driving, or tried.
But then, unlike me, you found
the dark horizon opened wide.
You turned where we all know we will.

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