Highway

You were warm once
back when I was.


Now you are a sheet of lace
floating on an incandescent ray and
a pair of crimson lips
on a lifeless face
staring back at me through
a golden polaroid.


I feel you in the damp concrete during
a summer storm;
I hear you in the cadence of a sweet hymn,
in the caress of a country bow and
in the crackle of decades-worn vinyl.


And now I press on,
and now I press on.


I have to press on.