Every Freeway in America by Mark Simpson

I am hearing the echo of every freeway

in America. Exhaust belch fluent tire smear

a dopplering of approach and the after—

too much noise to find a word for it.

Double double-nickel intensity on this one.

Kiss of chrome against chrome on that.

It was thought we would become

because we were connected.

The children of concrete are idling

on the entrance ramps, rear-view apologetics

move over goddamnit - and we have - and the gorgeous

smell of that concrete flowing from white trucks.

The radio sings: we are born to run.

Sometimes we wish a nature more perfect than ourselves.

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Mark Simpson He lives on Whidbey Island, Washington. He has a calendar, and as each day passes, he places a careful X in the small white square of yesterday. Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Sleet (Pushcart Prize nominee), Columbia Journal (Online), Third Wednesday, and Cold Mountain Review.