You call me from the road, cat stowed in the backseat. You’re crossing this whole continent in late summer heat. The cruelty of apathy had me startled yesterday. There’s so little that needs doing but it all feels in the way. I need to eat more protein but I don’t want any meat. I need to drink more water but I always have to pee. They say they really want you but then they never call. I don’t want what doesn’t want me; I don’t want much at all. When you get to where you’re going, do you think you’ll know? I thought I knew all summer, but perhaps I moved to slow. If hurry is what works then I guess I’ll always fail. In Minnesota I began to pray, under strawberry-sized hail. Are you going through Chicago? Seeing friends in St. Louis? The country spreads out far and fast when you come from the East. I’m starting to familiarize my eyes with local birds. I don’t know if I can say the same when racism is ignored. There’s pros and cons to every place, and this one is just new. But it’d be much more lonely if you weren’t moving too.