Around The Next Corner

Our grandfather's green Pontiac
filled up with as many relatives
as it could hold
for the weekend trips
to New Hampshire.
Sisters, husbands, grand kids
squeezed into any open space.

We laid on the floor
of the big back seat,
in between legs of passengers,
feeling every bump on the road.
Gramp said, " go to sleep,
the ride will go by faster."
When we asked," how much longer Gramp?"
he said, "just around the next corner",
but it never was.

Smoke from Camels and Luckies
made us carsick.
We wanted to stick our heads
out the window,
to feel cold air blow against our faces.
On winter nights, windows closed,
heat turned on, we struggled to keep our suppers down.
Sometimes Gramp had to pull over.

The adults continued to smoke,
eat sandwiches and drink coffee
from their thermos' throughout the night.
Soon the card games would start,
the drinks would fly,
the cigarettes would cloud the New Hampshire kitchen.

Gramp left the mountains
and the hilly street
where he lived,
He found a new home for his family,
and a better paying job,
as a foreman in a spring factory.


But this weekend and many others,
they were traveling on a road,
that took them back home,
to the friends and family left behind.
where the late night trips
were a straight shot North
on a parkway
that seemed to have no corners.