Roadside

ROADSIDE

On just which stretch of interstate 

is largely extraneous to the matter 

at-hand, which is just where the mitten

fell from, or how the pair of cargo 

shorts found their way into the limb 

of the roadside pine. Coolers, 

we know, are prone to pop like fleas 

from truck beds, the occasional mattress

to be expected in the median, 

but what’s to be said of the perfectly fine

pair of shoes, the blue, stuffed elephant, 

the floral-print pants beside a game of 

Risk, which is what it would be 

to stop and ask questions at this hour, 

this speed? We might be smithereened 

if we do, but whatever cracked door 

we’re racing toward and hoping

somehow to squeeze through evidently 

may require just such an inexplicable 

shedding onto the shoulder of the cab’s contents,

our double-buckled need to know.