Country Road Cruising

High beams caught the front edge of the cones.

Eggy sat chill
in the front passenger seat,
neither of us 
should have been driving,
but it was summer, 
we were young
and fishbowls of cheap beer
had been flowing easy
at The Green Monster.

It was dark 
out in the country,
the twisty county road even darker,
except for those luminescent yellow stripes
down the middle of the blacktop.

photo by George Hoyem

We were invincible,
windows down,
Eggy's hand slicing through the summer air
like a dolphin through a soft swell,
Grand Funk filling the car,
vibrating the dash, 
radio glowing green,
three-quarter moon 
glowing, too,
our only other guide
two high beams cutting through
the countryside
as we cruised back to town.

The high beams
caught the front edge
of a long line of orange traffic cones, 
lined up like candles on a quarter-mile cake, 
placed carefully by a county road crew
that was painting fresh stripes
but didn't finish before sunset.

'Let's take'em out!' 
was all Eggy had to say.

We cruised 
over a couple hundred yards 
of traffic cones, 
each one flipping and rolling 
in our wake,
one sticking under 
the carriage of the car
scraping along, 
as loud as a street cleaner.

We pulled over,
pulled the cone out
from under the car,
leaned back on the hood,
laughed but didn't say much.

'That was stupid!'

'Yep, but someone had to do it!'