Approaching City Limits


    Good Friday, Cincinnati


    Driving East on 74,


    we are winding down,


    tired of motion.


    Driving has become


    a force like gravity,


    pulling us with tireless hands,


    setting our pace


    with invisibly fast Mercury feet.


    In the back seat, our only son


    sleeps past towns and the lack of towns.


    Deep in his dreams, Ohio is a distant moon


    he sees between changing seasons.


    We pass a white-steepled church


    shepherding a flock of nearby houses


    haphazard in their placement,


    They appear to be wandering


    in their small valley, looking for a nook


    in the hills, a way out.


    I envision it all covered in nighttime snow,


    decide that is the way some areas should only


    If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.be seen, despite the brazen clamoring of Spring,


    who has taken advantage of three day''s rain


    to smother the highways in a hilly bosom, that is


    overdressed with bright, new adornments of green.


    Mount Airy Forest hovers on the left,


    and seems lower, more earthly on the right.


    The radio station appears and vanishes with each turn,


    gives us gifts of song with ghostly randomness.


    As my husband drives, we are constantly surprised


    by purple trees that seem too bright for Lent.


    Turning the wheel with hand-over-hand care,


    he counts the silent crosses on the roadside,


    as he names the flowers and photos which have been secured


    to their center points, obscuring their bare, white intersections.


    Soon, we will reach our destination. We are getting closer all the time.


    - Kat Isacson