Engineered Poetry

It’s 85.4 miles, door-to-door,
and five dollars, forty cents in gas.
At seventy six miles per hour,
it’s one hour, forty three minutes
including seven red lights.
That’s time enough to sing
nineteen songs to the breeze.
Time enough to realign perspective
with the four revolving wheels.
There are nine required turns:
four lefts and five rights
(or four rights and five lefts)
not counting three freeway exits.

It’s past twenty one gas stations,
three hotels and fourteen fast-food
restaurants. There are no rest stops.
It’s past untold amounts of litter:
cigarette butts, soda cans, plastic bags,
and only one inmate cleanup crew.
It’s past, on average, three wild
turkeys and eleven hawks that soar
past thousands of trees hugging
four lanes of heat-kissed asphalt.
It’s past one hundred and six cars,
each within reach, separated
by one imaginary line.

None of this matters.

There are two people.
One driving, one waiting,
both sharing a past
and present choice.