(written on the occasion of a weekend visit with Hayden Carruth
      to interview him for New York Quarterly, c. 1993)

He’s one of those guys who never stops driving,
      eyes always on the road.
When someone is talking, doesn’t interrupt either.
Keeps driving, right into the words.
Far in. Even when they stop speaking.
Drives till he’s really there.

The weekend Andrew and I were his passengers
he drove thru the back woods of 70 years;
with his young lady swerved like crazy
thru a funky country, air incensed with
      their erotic love.
Most careful / reckless guy we ever met.
Didn’t know it then, but he kept us
from getting into an accident.

She warmed the atmosphere making bread.
Knew we were there for him and moved quietly
      among us.
When they spoke, even something trivial,
they were making love. Never stopped.
Didn’t matter what we saw or heard as though
we weren’t there sometimes. But he knew.
Amplified our own love. which needed none.

This was stolen time for him, more than two decades
            on us.
Maybe the pure joy of seeing him with her
        made me forget: us too.
If Andrew had wished, right then on the couch, floor...
      But first, that phone call to make.
Never let on that he saw anything. Just kept talking.
I craned my neck, turning frequently to overhear,
tensed, like someone ready to jump out of a speeding car,
      not thinking of consequences.

He saw where I was headed; slit eyes bore down on me
and he rammed right thru high on the booze
he’d sworn off more than three decades.

Afterwards we drank, talked as though nothing happened.
When Andrew and I were ready, he offered us their bed
      for the night.

©1996, Linda Lerner
Reprinted with permission from She’s Back
(Ye Old Font Shoppe Press, 1996)

Linda Lerner is the editor of the online literary anthology Poets on the Line, which published ten issues between 1995 & 2000 that are now permanently ensconced on the Net. Her memoir of the great Boston poetry series, “Stone Soup Revisited, a Homecoming,” was published here at About Poetry in 2004 and she has also contributed a number of poems to our library.

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