Some friends I had
and the fortunate stars
they seemed to have been born beneath,
all proved me wrong —
my eyes were all that
had burned for them all along.
I watch them go,
recede from me,
and now I’d like
to get away from myself,
even if there are no signposts ahead,
no landmarks that I have left behind.
To think—
despite the years, to not
be any closer to that place
that I set out for as when I did —
it just should not be possible.
But then,
possible and impossible are just
two more terms
that should mean more than they do now.
How many markers between home and this
particular here?
How many decisions between some
particular here and some particular there?
How many single,
fatal,
decisions?
In some way,
I’m still with this girl
who believed that a life
is foretold at birth
by the stars’ configuration.
I am still in her beat up Golf with her
after some show,
and she’s reading my palm-
I’m humoring her for humoring me
with all these dates to nowhere —
dates going nowhere-
and tracing some crease
on the meat of my thumb she sees
I’m what you would call
an in-between guy
despite my long,
impulsive streak.
“You’re an in-between kind of guy,” she says.
What the hell do you mean I’m in between?
is what I meant to say
and am saying now,
aloud,
alone,
in the confines of my own car,
tonight, so far apart,
from that time
where point to point seemed a straighter line.
Kyle Richey is a native of southern New Jersey who currently works at Anthony Sylvan Pools in Skillman. He studied English at Kutztown University in Pennsylvania. ‘Turnpike Blues’ is from his chapbook, “Past Lives.” He writes, “My favorite poetic work is T.S. Eliot’s ‘Four Quartets,’ and in this chapbook I tried to channel his sense of eternity, penance, and doubt into my inventory of the last five years of my life.”
