The road taken and taken away,
left for dead,
left at the rest stop
with a broken coffee machine.
Left with an empty tank,
a flat tire, a dead battery
and it looks like rain.
The gas station is closed
and, anyway, the clerk is crazy.
No chicken for you, no taters.
Beer won’t help. How strange.
The road veers unseen
in a distance so far
that even time makes no sense.
Lightning splits the doldrums.
Nighttime daytime midnight noon.
Singing old songs that become hymns.
Everything leads everywhere
when you are undone.
When you are unfinished,
unprepared and hungry.
When you are left behind.
Jeff Weddle is the Alabama Beat Poet Laureate (2024-2026). His latest books are High on Rose (Keeping the Flame Alive Press, 2026), The Things We Do to Protect Our Own (Meat for Tea Press, 2025), and Letter to Xhevdet Bajraj (2025). He opposes fascism in all forms and grieves that such opposition has become dangerous in America.
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