Shortcut

A shortcut, 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.