We leave the Thunderbird
to salt-rust some more,
take the 350 out
under the full sun and
zig-zag up the middle of the
white-lined highway
heading for Canada.

It’s a long journey to take
and for that reason alone.
It is beyond where we are
and in this bright light
shines like the right way to
disturb and excite our
blood on a hot day.

We pass cars that retain the heat
and roll up country into our
channel of cooling air where the bike
and white broken stripes become a line
racing the road to an end
or wherever it takes us on a long
curve of an invisible bend

until T-junctions become targets
for our heart-beats. But each stretch
soon turns into the flat grey
of open space within the greater
emptiness of the countryside.
The Honda roars on and our
sun closes down at the horizon.

The Lakes are somewhere
in the night we reach
before turning home,
and, never nearing the border,
we look for more than small
lights in the distance to signal
this new destination, some
sign unknown along the road
but speaking to us alone on the
reason for thundering on.