Driving Through Ground Fog West of Montpelier, Vermont
Any minute now, the eighteen wheeler
barreling straight for my rear end will pass me
on a curve doing sixty.
Which he does, tail-lights sucked into the fog.
I'm a woman driving alone
on a mountain road in the dark,
thinking of my friend, bored with her husband,
taking a lover
yet afraid of driving at night.
Randolph, Middlebury, Vergennes.
I leave the city behind for mountains
and woods where moose prowl, foraging
in the fringed greenness of undergrowth, only
to take to the highway for abrupt encounters.
Bear Crossing. Next Two Miles, the sign says
among slopes of dark spruce and birches
that gleam like invitations on fine white paper.
Northern lights glaze the sky with soft bravado
and the mountain road unrolls beneath my car,
supple now, twisting and turning like a lover
pressing me on home.
—Claire Keyes, Marblehead, MA
