dreaming of the mediterranean

By the wayside at a busy highway
Bill waits patiently to talk to people unlike
me. Yet he finds me stumbling in,
in dire need
of company with my uncut nails clutching
the damp butt-end of an unlit paper toy.

And the usual salutations lead into unlikely discussions
and contemplations of cultural misgivings
and missed opportunities for travel.
Here, along the remote roadways of rural Pennsylvania,
my words stumble around the concrete blocks
that make up these states
and that word so
choppy,
and I revel in the banter between
this man, my father's age, as we talk women
and of the fathers of our lady-friends and how they always scare us
men.

The words stretch out into the distance with the trailing highway, never
knowing where they circle and bend back into themselves.
Bouncing headlights smack our ears and the weariness escaping his
body clasps that from mine and clings on for life.

I take my leave in hesitance -- the rented room awaits but I am
sorry to leave this self-proclaimed ignorant redneck
with no one to talk with in the middle of chilly night
that creeps out of the trundling trucks' noisy exhaust pipes.