Tides

I have swollowed the filthiest tar that was passed across a counter only to find the most charming coffee house a street away. It is not just the swill. People. Everything I endure is because of the people in the next town, plowing a field, walking school children to McDonalds, blowing leaves across the road. I have met the greatest souls, and my pen is new.
At another coffee shop someone orders a blueberry muffin heated. Now we all need one. This is the walk. Searching for eyes that are still alive. It is easy to find them. Usually they find me, and they can't remain silent. I answer all the questions like it's the first time. When I hear them... when I see them, it is the first time. I don't even know what I will say ,so I listen too.

I pass the bee hive furnances of Wassic. I walk into the lower town to the left to talk to the locals. Everything is dressed for Halloween--even if it isn't trying. Old factories haunt the sky, and I feel like I've fallen into the opening cut from Rambo. I write a couple of postcards. I think of a cold beer at the pub. I look at all the pick-up on steriods in the parking lot. I decide to wait on the beer.

There are tides to the road. In the morning all the water in the world rushes out leaving pets, the elderly, and warm homes. It is the hour now when the water returns. All is new, refreshed. Food, money, love are all brought home in tired arms to submerge in another night. The damp tar sounds exactly like the sea as wave after wave of cars return home.