Tulsa, June 16

  

She meets us halfway

up the highest hill in Oklahoma

where I have succumbed to weak knees

and am walking, the chain guard chafing

softly against my left shin.

Her husband is sly, camera in hand,

to suspend me on this vertices indefinitely,

with the look of Sisyphus.

She is brawny, salt, pepper and bratwurst

on the tongue that sizzles with thick

German influence. Her accent lags

behind her at our heels.

She introduces us to her home:

four-car garage, five bedrooms, no pets;

and lets us wean on bottles of Spaken,

bribing us to report the condition of

camping behind an Illinois penitentiary

and other roadside attractions.

At this account, her husband curls his huge arms

across a burled chest and grunts like my late grandfather.

Near midnight, after her husband retires,

She takes us to Braums: best frozen yougurt in the west.  

(Julian and I keep the secret that we’ve eaten

at three since Kansas)

so she buys us each a cone and in the booth

confesses the transgressions of a touring cyclist:

she peed once behind a convenience store in Montana

when the attendant refused her a key to the bathroom.

She leans across the table and says,

Never be afraid to ask for what you want.

The worst response you’ll get is no…

how bad is that?