Short Cut

A short cut, so we said, a different road, 

we never saw it until this afternoon, 

it serves the back country and folk like us

who try to save some miles, but the new moon

 

had risen before we made it home, your wish

whatever it was forgotten, the road dug through 

clay hills and sand and we got good and lost,

wild blackberries, weeds and sumach mocked us too. 

 

A shaggy man with a gun came out when we

turned around in his yard, we were scared to stop,

we met a girl with jet-black piggy eyes

who wouldn't talk - I guess this was the crop

 

of people we saw. The chipmunks seemed more tame

and friendly, we fed them crumbs. After several hours

we found the highway again and took a deep breath

of relief to see the signs, we dumped the flowers

 

we gathered at a crossroads where we'd stopped 

to call on instinct for directions, the change

from numbered streets confused us, we felt safe

with pavement under us, in the country strange.