Tag Archives: MICHIGAN POET

Traveling those blue highways those rural routes

of back roads, of byways weaving through

small town USA where life thrives in a

slow way if it thrives at all

With empty old shops surrounding

the local hardware and there’s

a café and gas station at the corner

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Rosey’s Cafe printed across the window

neon light blinking “OPEN” calling me

come on in for lunch, not to forget that

breakfast is served all day everyday

Breakfast it is with the proper amount of grease

and grits, thick bacon and that toast

that is square, fat and slathered with butter

with a side of homemade strawberry jam.

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Across the street, a thrift store with antiques

a passion for me, a junker’s paradise, a road

tripping pirated looking for bounty.

These shops can be hoarder full,

barely able to walk through

with mountains of rummage collected

hangered and stacked with some order that

defies the meaning of what order is

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Somebody’s grandparent’s ancient old shit

an estate of family collectables unwanted

heirlooms broken to be fixed in the never will be

Generation of not letting go, now needing it to go.

Families don’t know what to do with what’s

left after the scramble and pawing through it

dumped now in these shops in the hope that

making a few dollars off of someone’s forgotten

 treasure is for a ’picker’ something to celebrate.

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Not enough people pass through these

off-the-main-drag small rural communities

to buy the leftovers of old dead people

long gone with outdated uselessness

only worth the rummage to a true junker

A pirate of the byways seeking treasure

I hear the call. I stop for the joy in the hunt

following a garage sale sign

in the middle of Midwest nowhere

passing alfalfa fields with poor farmers eking

a living with a few cows and chickens and a big

gardening full of vegetables and flowers for some

local prosperity to keep the living pulse Ok enough

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This sign aiming me onto a damn dirt road

where the grass grows down the center of it

and the rain puddle too deep I have to turn around

Should have turned left at that last cross-road

Should have let the grass be a sure sign of nowhere.

I should on myself yet again, only to arrive at

the best garage sale ever smelling the methane in the air

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It’s good to know yourself as a compass traveling this way

or at least how to follow the sun cause that’s maybe

what you need to follow unless you decide

that sooner of later you’ll hit a main road

if you go far enough in one direction or another

That’s iffy and then again. hell you’re on a road trip

taking the blue highways where ever looking for stuff

stopping when you like, sleeping at JoJo’s motel

just on the edge of that town you passed through

a few miles back deciding it was time to make it a day.

Turning around cause you’re pretty sure there’s not

much you’ll come across any time soon on C32

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Sitting at the café’ counter connected to JoJo’s,

my appetite worked up for all the seeking of treasure

and the miles of driving and stopping

ordering the meatloaf with mash potatoes, gravy

and boiled carrots with maple butter dripping on them

striking up a conversation with a woman named Peggy

with her over bleached permed hair, too tight jeans,

a hot pink tank top showing every curve she wants you to linger on

She wonders why a woman like me, in my jeans,

my black peace sign tee shirt, rings on every finger

and my ratty old Birkenstocks that serve me well

is alone without a man on road trip like this

Isn’t that dangerous? Wasn’t I scared?

Why would I ever travel alone?   

She couldn’t image it.

I ask her who does her hair.

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jeanne adwani. @copyright

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