wiping the sheet of morning dew from the inside of the windscreen put beads
of water on her palm and streaks
of oil on the glass
and didn't quite clear the vision of the road anyway.
smoothing out the hastily hand-crafted map
you'd written her the night before the residual water
blurred the ink lines on the paper and stained her skin blue
so it looked like an old prison tattoo
and she felt tough.
the car wasn't running great but she gunned it and chunked it
steadily into 5th
and followed your smeared directions perfectly over
a dawn-kissed highway, pavement still chilled from night
a bridge, or two, over fog banks and lapping rivers.
arriving with her jacket pulled up tight
around her neck she threw your paper to the floor of the car
and swung out of the door onto a path
to the place you'd directed her
without understanding completely
the arms she fell into that morning
provided the last comfort she'd know or need to know
for the rest of her natural life.