Poetry - Issue 12 | June 2011
Key West or Bust
by Jean L.
Key West or Bust
We passed them on southbound I-95,
not far from Jupiter: a caravan
of weather-worn RVs, the kind you drive
from park to park towards your winter tan.
Wisconsin license plates meant they had driven
for days—back-straining, patience-taxing days.
The hard work of vacationing had given
the drivers’ eyes a highway-haunted glaze
and must have left their necks in knots. What’s worse,
here in the “Sunshine State” it had been raining,
and we could almost hear the drivers curse;
the engines, too, were probably complaining.
We waved at them, but none waved back; each one
stared straight ahead, in search of mythic sun.
About the author
Jean L. Kreiling’s poems have appeared in 14 by 14, The Evansville Review, The Formalist, Mezzo Cammin, Think, and elsewhere; she herself has appeared in fewer countries than she would like. A Professor of Music at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts, she frequently travels to conferences, family reunions, and beaches.