Loping West at Twenty-One

Greyhound and four and a half days
to get to L.A. What we had to say of
so-long was said and we were off at twenty-one

hardly done with ruling notebooks,
but off to (speak softly) California.
We learned a form of Greyhound sleep

at knees and heels with night, you
too tall for ease, and all short snores
teasing my slumber. But we went

greyhound swimming through four nights
of rolling west and lived for the dark
coffee stops and lopping miles.

Went to California in a hush to live
and match our memories
between those bookend seas

that held our worlds apart. You planted
what you had of heart in that Pacific
dust and I hiked my lust home east

to learn the least things overlooked
in this New England town I took
for dull and lagging every-day;

and later watched the greyhounds lope west
again remembering the year we were twenty-one
(was it only one?) running to catch life.