An Empty Road
An empty road is more expressive than
An interstate or crowded motorway
With traffic. Lack of woman and of man
Along the vacant stretch, not downtown splay
Of Fords and buses, trucks and such upon
An asphalt street, invites the heart and brain
To conjure absent love. Before the dawn
A blank canal in Venice might explain
A thousand years of boats, and oars, and poles
More pregnantly than gondolas that ply
Canals with tourists. All the missing souls
Must be supplied by loneliness’s eye.
The Holland Tunnel crammed with front-seat crease
Of worries matters less than country peace.
~ Phillip Whidden