Legend

In 1967, I hadn’t happened yet. He drove the Wisconsin highway

as it was. It didn’t have as many branches;

traffic then, a fraction of now. Although, underneath it maps

the same. Driving through, he passed so many exits

without thought, until the gas gauge, hunger, or a sign

nudged him, get there sooner. He wondered if it’s worse to be tired

or late. Yet, each number matters to someone, so much that they get tired

of noticing. Driving home the same way every day, it’s not the highway

anymore but a stretch of routine. Low on fuel, I look for a sign

and there it is, a simplified pump, an arrow where the road branches.

If I lived here I’d know where to go. I don’t. I rely on marked exits

and routes I’ve already planned. I plot the future with maps,

which are less paper now than a voice in my ear. I know that the map

is not the road, but accept a representation. I wonder where he got tired,

driving to a conference hall, a sales meeting, a waste of time, the exits

more appealing than the speaker. He wished to be back on the highway

but not to be home. They spoke of elevator speeches, a no as a branch

that leads to a yes. Get the yes. Always get the yes. Get them to sign.

They’re all green now, on the side of the highway, the same signs

that were white for him. I compare, thinking that the father is a map

for the son, no matter the shape it’s in, and the son is the branch;

that replaces the tree entirely. I’d ask him how he got so tired

but don’t we all, some days? It’s only a road, this highway,

a name for specific miles, the stretch between entrance and exit

I’ve stared at the photograph so many times, considering his exit.

He pulled onto the shoulder, as if he could interrogate the sign

with a look, and make it change its story. Back then, the highway

was limbo, no cell phone internet. Just you, Hank Williams, a map

on the seat, and whatever thoughts were spinning around like tires

in your head. Until you pick one, every single branch

ahead seems possible. Is that the story, that the branches

collapsed behind you, leaving only the thought of exit?

I’m on the Wisconsin highway, 45 years later, both tired

of and resigned to investigation, as if every gesture was a sign.

But, I hadn’t been thought of yet. You read your own map,

humming the tune to your own lost highway

I drive past another branch, and decide that this sign

is irrelevant. His exit, my entrance, spinning wheels; a map

I drew when I was tired and feeling small against the highway.