A Road Trip Medley

Six to four
Four to two
Two to one
One to none

A bus full of people travels the highway
Colored white with a blue stripe
And a heavy duty wheelchair lift on the side
Wheels spinning
Tires humming with the rain grooves
Extra all-terrain grip tread tracking smooth

Mile marker 87.5 sped by the right hand windows
In the fourth seat back a six year old boy began singing
A sing-song simple tune
Not catchy
Not annoying
Very forgettable

"I bent to your progress mommy
I went around the way for you
Past those hips that bore me to term
Out of reach of the hands that scold"

The six lane highway outside the windows slid by silently
Three lanes going West
Three lanes going East
Sun rising
Sun setting
Shadows chasing after all
A mountain grew in the distance
When Six lanes shrank to four

The old woman in the second row got up to pee
Stepping on the toes of her seatmate
Who wept silently for the completeness of his corns
Though nobody took any notice
As the bathroom agenda grew from number one to two
And a skunky clinging stink slunk through the cabin
While the fourth seat child adjusted free-formedly

"When the box it closed me on in
For one half a fortnight and more
The stench I called mortality
When you too added your perfume"

Four lanes of divided highway with no other car in sight
Bore that special transport van into colored twilight
Flat plains covered in seas of grass
Roughening to foothills of broken glass
Till four lanes became a more flexible two
That joined at a double yellow line
That snaked across the landscape it danced through

Nobody ever came back out of the bathroom
Which would have seemed disturbing anywhere else
But the quickly fading stench of life's process was such a relief
That the others on the bus didn't care overmuch
Though all the ones who considered themselves to be smart
Held their bodily functions
Tightly in their clenched buttocks and thighs
A few even wet the seats

"A door to heaven and hell as well
Is installed to the rear I fear
Don't nobody get up to investigate
The driver is in control of your soul"

Old school two lane blacktop narrowed to the horizon
Disappearing in the shadow of the mountains
Which glowed blackly at their base
Sucking in all the available light
When the roadway started climbing quite suddenly
With the shoulders dropping away frighteningly
To impossible drops of fathoms deep
Two lanes vanishing into one
That was unmarked
Rocky
And steep

All remaining passengers tilted backwards with gravity now
Strapped in with five point harness and dreams
Both wrinkled old and smooth young
Knowing that the end can not be far from come
Lungs strained at bone cages
To inhale the last bits of life
Hungrily
Greedy to the end

"Ave' contradicting theology dios
Both right angles and flat lines
Riding rails covered in tar and feathers
Hand in hand we give out our names

Hoping to be let into the gates"

Nothing left now but a dead end sign
Made up of Bugs Bunny wood and nails
Randomly hammered into the narrow track
Though with a roar our driver revs up his Cummins diesel
In a last burst of turbo assisted acceleration
Shattering the stop sign to dust
For there never really is such a thing as a Dead End

Six to four
Four to two
Two to one
One to none