Drive, a poem

by Joe Mills

Alec Favale

From my hotel room, I watch the sun rise and illuminate a line of cars circling a Starbucks on the other side of the parking lot. The light and line continually shift as I read about the poet Weldon Kees, who in a conversation with a friend asked, “What keeps you going?” and the sadness of that question flavors my coffee and morning. He disappeared afterwards, his car found with keys in the ignition, and some say he either “killed himself or went to Mexico,” as if those, in the end, are the only choices. Later, at the facility, as I watch the line of boys with their scars and burns, their dim eyes, their belief nothing will help them, not the program, not friendship, certainly not poetry, I repeat silently, as if praying, “Please choose Mexico. Wherever that may be. Something there may keep you going.”

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Joe Mills has published eight collections of poetry with Press 53, most recently Bodies in Motion: Poems About Dance.