Revision--Future 86

The signs on the road, here
Say “Future 86.”
Like the road doesn’t even exist.
Like we’re driving to a place
That we want to go
But can’t.
Because it’s not ready.
Because we’re not ready.

It was winter,
The first time I looked over
At the black letters that shined
Against white,
And I listened to my father talk about plans
For construction that would
(Eventually)
Turn the road into an interstate.

Whatever the hell that entails.

He said they’d be finished by the time I was done here,
Squinting his eyes and rubbing the fog off
Of the windshield so that he could see through the night. 
He said that by the time I was out,
By the time I was grown,
The road would be done
And I, of course, would go on.

I asked him what he meant by “finished.”
I asked him what he meant by “grown.”
He shrugged his shoulders and said that
He didn’t quite know. 

As he talked
I sat in the passengers seat, rubbing my hands together to fight off the cold,
Thinking about where I would be
When this was all over.
I knew, of course.
Definitely.

Five years later, and they’re still not done.
The “Future 86” sign still looms,
Somewhere out in the darkness:
A reminder of unfinished business.
Of unfulfilled goals,
Missed opportunities,
Work still to be done.

And I,
I am not nearly done, either.
I find myself back in a place
With streets that are haunted
By people I have loved,
Mistakes I have made
And shadows of the person I was. 

It seems like decades have passed in six months.

I search the streets—
Up and and down
                            And down
                                   And   down
Hills.

These streets that I have walked, here
These towns that I have driven through countless
And countless times and times
And times and times
And time stops,
Here on these streets.

On the road to Wisconsin, 
The snow falls, against the odds, in an early September sky.
And we are running
As fast as we can.