It seems too early for snoring
in the afternoon,
but I hear it, along with a thrumming
hotel air conditioner and traffic
careening this way and that nearby.
I loved what I could see through my window
on the drive but we never stop
except at the doughnut shop to pee.
I’m going to miss that stretch of road.
The ebullient signs excite me
though not to buy anything but to think
how large a world there is
beyond the three regular roads I travel.

One road is necessity.
Another road is obligation.
The third is for the spirit.
Anything behind that is for fun,
and I wish we’d take that route more often.

It’s too early to be thinking about supper
but the quiet makes me more aware
of my stomach and there is somehow
a mounting excitement about eating
in another town, even when it ends up
being the same food as at home.

It’s too middle-of-the-road to be
having a midlife crisis
and maybe I’m way past halfway
but I am hungrier than I should be,
I’m not at all tired of new places,
and the third road is calling me
like a carnival barker at sundown.

I’m 15, watching “Swing Time,” wondering if anything could ever be as smooth
as the dancing of Fred and Ginger
and dialog of 1930’s writers.
Perhaps Chaplin before talkies.
I imagine riffing like Rosalind Russell
but I’m nobody’s Girl Friday.
I glare like Bacall and ache like Cary Grant
without discernable roots.
The ‘40s and ‘50s flew by
but not without leaving marks.
I’m 51 and my marks are showing in ways
I had not anticipated.
I don’t know how long I can hold on
before I lose it like Brando
or become cynical like Bogart.
The treasure of finding slivers of light
between noir blinds
is like finding new love when you’re looking
for a good book; it’s all a beautiful surprise.
I will never be as cool as Grace Kelly
or as wanted as Marilyn
and I don’t seem to have a sense of right
like Cooper or Stewart.
Who would I have been then?
Bette Davis or Rita Hayworth, or maybe
Ingrid Bergman with plenty of smarts
but questionable choices.
I’d probably be a contract player, a
character actor, a dancer in the chorus line.
God knows I’m not enough of a looker
to be a lead or enough of a writer
to figure out what comes next.

The sun held sway at lunch.
A cool breeze pushed aside warm air.
It was almost perfect.
There was a deep rumbling hum.
I thought maybe there was roadwork nearby
but it seems after searching
for the disturbance, it was coming from
inside, where I had a lingering pang,
a weird dark space where sounds of the day
were lost to echoes of imagined promise.
I ignored the passing flutter of birdsong
for the voice I hear in my dreams,
the one that shamelessly declares
things most people scoff at:
love and passion and ardent assertions
that all will be well.

There’s a video of Monet painting.
It’s over 100 years old so I suppose
it’s got a bit of magic attached.
The visual of him creating.
He looks dapper and somewhat
lackadaisical, glancing at a pond
and putting a few strokes on a canvas.
Was he vain and enjoyed being filmed
or was he posturing and swiping the canvas
as he thought would showcase him best
or did he have a loose way of working?
The film can only show a bit of rendering
and not the full image he had in mind.
So we have to look and imagine
all we can’t see.

Today’s soundtrack was
a rhythmless bout of noisy birds,
the same three notes on a piano on repeat,
lots of big breaths before little epiphanies,
Chaka Khan, onions sizzling frying in oil,
maybe four full laughs, and an odd twang.

Sometimes the orchestra is made of
frogs, sometimes flutes.
Wednesday is a roiling boiling zydeco.