For my teenage brother in a stolen Chevrolet,
the exit ramps ahead were all possibilities,
potential tangents boogying off into sunburned pastures
surging toward an edgy, darkening horizon.

He gave himself a free ride now
with the whoopee wind whistling his tune,
with country and western wailing his mood.
He lived the bounce now,
cutting himself free from the herd,
escaping a small-town’s feedlot existence,
flying forward as in a swing, away, away now,
the reaction delayed for some other time zone.

But these ramps were only half-choices: limited
to one-way leaving, to veering only right.  No lefts allowed.
He turned off toward Comanche and aborted
the promises of choices further up the concrete road.
But that was all right: his future had no play in it,
didn’t extend beyond the gas in the Chevy’s tank,
or his forced enlistment into the Marine Corps;
for him only the present tense carried weight.

The stop sign of his chosen exit
called for another decision: right or left?
Into the light of a cranberry-red sky and setting sun?
Or its opposite where night already threatened?
Which way, coyote?  Either choice left behind
a past not to be traveled, one that would
unfurl like a country road receding
in the Chevy’s rearview mirror.