Meeting some drivers can be fatal
I know why the hitchhiker
Rubbed his Buck knife
Still in its sheath
And told the 16 yr. old girl
In her parent’s Pontiac,
Who was quite wishing she’d
Never picked him up,
To drive her to a deserted place.
And I know why, once there,
The hitchhiker told the girl,
Whose tight little body
Heaved in fear,
That it hadn’t been too smart
Of her to pick him up
Being all alone like she was.
I also understand why he
Then got out of the car,
Never having touched her,
And said that in 15 years of hitching
He’d never been picked up
By a little cutie like her,
But that he’d had others like her
A thousand times
In his mind,
As he’d stood on gravel roadsides
All over the world,
Watching them drive by,
Flipping him the finger occasionally,
More often just ignoring him altogether,
Him standing all alone and cold
In the rain,
Them roaring off into the night.
And I think I understand why she won’t
Pick me up as she goes by
And why
That hitchhiker finally hung himself
In a jail cell in Iowa
And why people say “etc.”
When they mean that
Certain dances go on and on,
Over and over,
Etc. and etc.
Photo by Atlas Green on Unsplash