AC/DC blasting we drive
a stolen car for the reservation
legal bottle rockets
but at every stop find
shops closed for Sunday's rest

Despite this we drive on
through the dry New Mexico
spring slumped in the wide back
seat while stunted evergreens sweep
back into the sand-colored
scenery until at MILE
0 we turn back

No one else notices
that green marker
among the weeds
nor would they care

One highway
opens; the other
disappears

3 Things About This Free Verse

1. The wilder days of my youth were really not so wild.
2. The car was stolen only in the sense we didn’t tell the owner we were taking it.
3. They might have actually lent it to us if we had asked.