Searching for the whole package.

Ever on the road

an eye on the past

an ear to the future

a melody  stuck in the teeth

after that happy meal on the Pearblossom Highway 

one desert giving way to another
with valleys in between

Antelope, Moreno, Simi 

looking for Pacific winds

and promises of rain
America stretching in the rear-view mirror
getting tired and fatter by the miles.

We must have thought those drive-ins around the corner
the one with cute girls on rollerskates
delivering American food by the quarter pound
at our windows,
an all-American meal with fries and a coke
and a milk-shake for the road ahead,
we must have thought the future had arrived,
with that meal, those girls, and straight teeth smiles everywhere.

Home is just above the ridge line

you told your children

squeezed in the back seats, fumbling with their 

promised happiness toys from the last food stop.

Truth was nowhere in sight, you kept discovering, decade after decade, in the mist

of forgetfulness and desire for a change

truth was never a known fact like cooking for five remained

after the five were no longer around

and then the two of you

kept bringing home Oreos and chocolate chips. 

You hid the cookies by placing them on the top shelf

ignoring the fact that you were the only one who couldn't reach the top shelf.

Houses got bigger when you no longer needed them so big.
And quiet.

Your idea of a perfect house
where no one would

forget to call home when they were late
with children's drawings on the refrigerator and a calendar with dental appointments
and times for cupcakes to be delivered to school,
must have been a story you read in a fiction book.