On the way home
we pull off Highway 29
near Abbottsford
to get gas.
It’s been raining since
we left Minneapolis.
An Amish buggy
clip clip clips
into the auto parts store
across the road.
The horse doesn’t question,
just stands there,
dripping.
Maybe they sell
tractor parts, too; or maybe
the man just wanted
out of the rain,
wanted to walk on the smooth, dry, floors,
wanted to walk up and down the shiny weedless furrows of
floor mats, motor oil, windshield wiper blades, headlights
stacked squarely in piles, shoulder to shoulder
on shelves, swinging slightly from the pegs
as he walks by, the headlights
briefly reflecting his dark form
like the shadow of a cloud
on a lake.
His hand
trails in the air just above
the perfectly machined boxes
before he pulls his hat low on his brow,
thinking about want and need,
thinking about his horse,
the hours since breakfast,
the nails in his shoes,
the blinders alongside his big brown eyes,
before he walks out past the girl
scrolling through nothing and everything
on the screen in her hand,
walks out past the bright orange
slow moving vehicle triangles,
walks out without buying anything at all,
into the driving rain.
Halfway North 