Turn Up Your Radio

Radio Silence

Fewer people have used a gun purchased

legally to commit a crime in this

country than the number of people

named Lester, the man said in rebuttal

in a civil debate on NPR

while a deep chasm yawned on the left side

of the road, black ice and white knuckles

paving our way into the Kentucky morning.

Perhaps I could turn back the clock if I

drove in reverse at a high rate speed,

Tennessee in the rear view mirror

much closer than it appeared, scattering

semis, scanning the dial for another

station maybe twenty-four hour

all sports talk or The Morning Zoo Crew

out of Louisville, even some preacher

speaking in a cadence so grating old

Satan himself would vow to go straight

in exchange for some radio silence.    

Ohio rolls over and flattens out

the hills for us but what’s done is done

a good and decent name forever besmirched

with an outlaw taint but Michigan

offers absolution at the first

available rest stop where I fall to

my knees and plead for forgiveness from

Messrs. Maddox, Flat and Young

adding, as an afterthought, Willy

Tyler’s wisecracking wooden dummy.