Melody Davis on the American road

The American road is our art,
pure process of leaving.
Driving doesn’t end. It only starts

as the radio feeds a secret part
of the brain that’s always running
the American road. Our art

has no destination, though it departs,
and the eyes, never full, keep filling.
Driving doesn’t end. It only starts

when the land curls under the car,
as though it were another way of seeing —
the American road, our art,

our music, our motion, our
world spinning by on a string.
Driving doesn’t end — it only starts

the drug of this country, too near and far,
where place is endless, beginning
on the American road, an art
of driving that doesn’t end, it only starts.