Pulled over to the gravel with a slow leak in the wheel,
the kind that doesn’t blow out, just deflates until you feel
the handling go soft and the ride goes from bad to worse —
a flat tire on the road to anywhere, in the universe.
He’s been sitting with the hazards on for longer than intended,
watching other people pass the spot where he ended
up beside the highway on the shoulder in the sun —
a man with a flat tire and not much else done.
Flat tire on the road to anywhere, sitting on the side,
flat tire on the road to anywhere, out of the ride —
the spare’s been in the trunk for years and might be flat too —
flat tire on the road to anywhere, nothing much to do.
He knows he ought to change it — knows the steps involved —
but the knowing and the doing are a problem to be solved
by a portrait of himself with more momentum than he’s got —
the man with the flat tire is running slightly hot
from the sun and the convenience of just sitting here a while
instead of kneeling in the gravel in the sun and going the full mile
of the effort — the tire will still be there in twenty more minutes —
the shoulder’s shade is decent and the sitting barely begins it.
He called in late because the flat was the excuse of the morning,
and the late was almost welcome, the flat almost a warning
that the road to anywhere requires a certain kind of working
that his tires haven’t had in years — he’s been shirking
the maintenance of forward, of the keeping up the motion —
the alignment’s been off for years without a real devotion
to the fixing and the checking and the keeping things in trim —
a man whose maintenance has drifted past the interim.
A truck slows down and the driver asks if he needs a hand —
he waves him off with the standard gesture that the world should understand
as “I’ve got this,” which is not accurate but is the easier thing —
accepting help would mean accepting that the flat is everything
it looks like from the outside: a man who stopped,
who’s been sitting on the shoulder since the forward dropped
out of the operating — better to wave the help away
and sit in the familiar convenience of the stayed.
Eventually he’ll change it, or he’ll call somebody,
or the day will move without him in its busy, forward body —
but for now the gravel shoulder and the passing of the cars
and the man beside the highway underneath the afternoon stars
of just-existing in the pause that circumstances gave him —
a flat tire on the road to anywhere, and the anywhere can wait —
he’s comfortable in the shoulder, which is something like a state
of grace for a man who’s been looking for a reason to stop being late.
Flat tire on the road to anywhere, another car goes past,
flat tire on the road to anywhere — how long can a flat last?
The flat can last as long as a man is willing to sit beside it —
and a man who’s comfortable in the shoulder doesn’t want to ride it
out of the comfortable, back into the traffic and the road —
flat tire, comfortable shoulder, and a manageable load.
He’s been on the shoulder of most things for a while —
not exactly stopped and not exactly running the full mile —
the metaphor extends: the flat is the ambition,
the shoulder is the managed, and the traffic is the mission
of the others going somewhere that they think they need to be —
and the man beside the highway is, for now, relatively free
of the urgency of getting there, wherever there is at —
flat tire on the road to anywhere, and he’s comfortable with that.