THE ROAD OUT
"In our world never will you gain complete satisfaction
so tomorrow I will undo my hair and sail away in my tiny boat."
-- Li Po
Every hair shorn off,
driving an '87 Accord
hatchback out of town laden
with every doodad linking me
to the world: computer, halogen
lamp, hometown palm in a terra
cotta pot. US 41 unrolling an asphalt
carpet, the long way to Chicago
ending up as Lake Shore Drive:
this the connector, paved
tether between my two homes
and that's when, off course, I prod
the darkness for some sign and look up
into the murk over the swamp
and see lightning skid through cloud-gaps:
If I were pagan, like Li Po
with his rituals to the Moon,
the Jade Emperor, and the Stone
Monkey, these flares would be my god:
the Lightning God, the God Whose Foot-
Steps Sound Thunder, who connects
the earth and sky with a white
tether of streaky fire vanishing.
Jorge Sánchez
