Pop The Collar

I know I'm a fool. AM radio gold and tears. Getting choked up. Crossing state lines belted, big rigged, and still love struck. It is as if the world is a cartoon. Unwrapping old feeling with every sad song on the radio. I'm sentimental. Tender and sensitive. Focused now on stopping distances, on the road and in my bed. The hum of the wheels, the glare at night and my eleven hour window. I put the hat backwards and fluff my hair. Pop the collar and keep the wheels spinning at 36 cents a mile. Winter's coming with no one to keep me warm. Three weeks out and three days in. Talk with Billie in Albuquerque when I can't hack the alone. About boys and their ways. She smiles and says, the blue eyed ones, eh poet? I read your work scrawled on the placemat last week and the week before. I know, me too. You're not alone. She hands me a salad. Wrinkled hands and fingers but nails to die for. No ring. Lingers and later I leave her a ten. She reminds me of my grandma.