One-Way Ticket

The postcard was addressed to a name I don’t know,

with a picture of a bridge and a river of gray.

It smelled like the exhaust and the grit and the snow

of the place I swore I would leave in a day.

I remember the gravel behind the old station

and the way the wind cut through the gaps in my sleeves.

It was a landscape of rust and of deep frustration,

where the trees only grew to drop dead, dirty leaves.

I won't look at the map or the weather report

for a zip code that tastes like a copper-lined mouth.

The life I lived there was ugly and short,

and I’m keeping my tires pointed strictly toward South.