Calculating Route
Looking like Lady Liberty in a mud mask worn thin that the cosmetologist prescribed for combination skin, wearing a slip she calls a dress (it’s clearly not), one sock, one shoe, her hair heaped up, her free hand covering the clock, Wynona drives a loop around a town two towns removed from Pleasant Bluff—just up and left tonight as if that proved she isn’t stuck. Yes, see how stuck she isn’t, unconcerned with the vaguely British voice explaining where she should’ve turned? She used to choose the scenic views, parked, flinging cans or matches over the edge, relieved at last to see the purple patches of sky go black; she used to feel half-holy, set apart from the tangled arteries that fed the city’s ill-lit heart. Ah well, Wynona’s older now and holy’s flown the coop; she hauls her fat soul down the road, grown sick of chicken soup and goodwill. These days, sleep’s a hint her body doesn’t drop, and bloodshot, spray-tanned, flaky-faced, Wynona drives to stop the endless spinning; nothing clears her head quite like the fogged observatory of her car. Considering she’s logged a million miles on the stretch connecting Back and Forth, she knows this much: from plate tectonics to magnetic north the earth is shifty; like the dead GPS in her lap, the gods, those bum cartographers, are all over the map.