Exit Only

which isn't the same thing as "only exit," I decide. I pass it by
and pick my destinations as the exits come.
So many exits. So many destinations.

The 90 to America's wrinkled brow, the Badlands.
Or 80 all the way to fault lines and saltwater air.
(I won't list the unpoetic interchanges I'd take to New Acadia.)

If I'm a purist today, I'll wind up and down
the Dixie Highway, serpentine asphalt river,
through one old Main Street after another.

Or arching over the great granite shield, the Transcanada Highway
might satisfy even the most discerning lover of the continent.
You might not even want to move back down south.

But you, you didn't listen to me. You took it, the only
exit that leads to responsibility and order, leaving me,
a phantom in your mind,
cruising the roads of a continent
without you.