MAP TO A PIN

Mile marker 91 kept vigil alongside a lonesome stretch
of Nowhere. while maggie parked her husky P.O.S.
in the shade of fond memories. where family road trips
could echo in the isolation of a wandering.
and where a hose could reach an engine block
like a length of grace from a spool
of american bauhaus aping Frank Lloyd Wright
the wrong way...
maggie sat on the hood of a steel wagon.
baking an invisible cobbler with her mother’s apron
strapped to her waist... just above where her hips
had reserved a spot to fill in -
during an awkward summer
in a teen angst bivouac  
laminating fake IDs
for the lip gloss posse on Beaumont Ave.,
the Rest Stop was deserted
and detached from the landscape
Like her memories…
much in the way -
moon pies were detached
from Stuckey's by rednecks
on holiday…

the amenities were a
virtual hospitality…
with municipal departures
from informed design
in favor of industrial courtesies
the Very Envy of Beige.
and at its cubical heart
lay an irony
beckoning graffiti
at taxpayers expense….
with all the languish
of an earnest
coma.

but maggie had a soda pop.
and her mother’s ghost cobbler
so her lonesome had nothing
but a map…

to a pin.