#6
And then Ti-Jean Jack with Joual tongue
disguised as an American fullback in plaid shirt
crossing and recrossing America
in speedy cars
a Dr Sax’s shadow shadowing over him
like a shroudy cloud over the landscape
Song of the Open Road sung drunken
with Whitman and Jack London and Thomas Wolfe
still echoing through
a Nineteen Thirties America
a Nineteen Forties America
an America now long gone
except in broken down dusty old
Greyhound Bus stations
in small lost towns
Ti-Jean’s vision of America
seen from a moving car’s window
the same as Wolfe’s lonely
sweeping vision
glimpsed from a coach-train long ago
(And thus did he see first the dark land)
And so Jack
in an angel midnight bar
somewhere West of Middle America
where one drunk madonna
(shades of one on a Merrimack corner)
makes him a gesture with her eyes
a blue gesture
and Ti-Jean answers only with his eyes
And the night goes on with them
And the light comes up on them
making love in a parking lot