The Way

You know love is a long daily drive
over the same territory—everything
is familiar; the highway signs, the billboards,
the restaurants you've been to,
the motels you spent a week at one night;
the only interruptions are the miles of road construction
jagging your clarity, your pace slowed for your safety.
In your rear view mirror is displayed
the contents of the trunk: all the pierced flat tires
and oily rags, the detritus of trips passed into memory now.
You change the radio station to a good song.
I reach a hand to your cheek, pressing gently
the backs of my fingers to your same tender flesh.

Don't you know? Don't you know?
There isn't any map—no map, no map,
only this road being traveled.
And I refuse to be just another hitchhiker.