Honeymoon

I remember a stretch of Route 4, on the way
to Kennebago, Maine. After the superstores
had vanished, along with the Kittery shores,
summer homes, fishing boats and red clay,

we drove deep into the pines. The morning air
was full of their scent. The sunlight speckled
the pavement, and for hours we were jailed
in the pegboard grove. I cringed at a pair

of antlers bobbing in the shadows and you
watched the hill up ahead fill the windshield,
then carry us above the tree line. And held
there, over the world like pilots for one or two

holy minutes, we took pictures and sighed,
then traversed again into the timberland
trusting our road to lead to Rangeley, and
ignoring the darkness and disease outside.

Disease in that it wasn’t easy to consider
breaking down there, where maybe no one
would come through for hours, you and I alone
without maps or even a story to remember

and recreate for ourselves if the card deck
scattered and the cigarettes ran out. In kayaks
headed to a small island, the sun on our necks
and shoulders sore, water in the camelback

pockets of granola, we said time would be
a haversack we could jam full of these ventures.
The world had tried to trick us into being unsure
but there we were on the water, shining and free.

On the drive home, you fell asleep. I turned
on the radio and thought about things like
plates and toasters, and how long it would take
for all your things and mine to blend.