rites of way

Two hundred years down the road
I take a right, stopping for no man. 
No traffic light blinks at me, even
in the dark. It is the first storm

after a million other storms, and
the traditional season for whining.
There’s snow in that rain, I smell it.
It’s the same water Joseph drank,

and sweated out climbing down
the trail to the Snake.  Evaporation
mends a multitude of sins, but not
necessarily all of them.  My great

grandfather brought Old Joseph hay;
my grandfather dined on fatal down-
wind dust from Hanford; my father
died under anaesthesia; my stepfathers

eventually could not be bothered. Planes
fly overhead, except when they don’t.
Two hundred years back down the road,
she took a left, and stopped for a man.