rewrite

(orig. shat this one out for a 'pome-a-day' piece a couple years back. Forgot about it. 730am revise, years removed, is as follows):

THE HI-ROAD DRIVE-IN



leadfooted down U.S. 68 past Dunkirk to
Columbus
for a wedding
20 yr. old music from my boyhood shuffling
the big W. OH sky

clear & cool @ noon 1st day
of spring & nearly blew by it to spite

our eyes peeled for it, anonymous, almost hidden
outside passengerside window, just beyond
irrigation ditch, hemmed in by distant
treelines not yet leaved, rumble
of tires on gravel in reverse to pull into
its dirt driveway, disembark & photograph

sun/weather-bleached box office marquee recalling
tornados on Katie’s birthday, June ‘89
broke off & carried away the bigger part of
its whitewashed plywood screen, yet unmended, to leave
those few here for the movies squinting
as if watching grandparents’ portable TVs

oblivious, it would seem, to advances
of kids like me, there to lose/take cherries, now as then & back
to frame the marquee, this
tumbleweed, if you will, to that cobwebbed corner, my
sentimental mind & take cover behind
driver’s side door to skirt

wind-kicked dust. Resume driving
sign aliases in an antique café guestbook
downroad in Kenton, marvel @ unchanged
farm machines foreground to yellow thaw
19th, to be exact, since I last blew through &

left behind & Stipe’s voice filling the car rings
apropos: Take a picture here. Take a souvenir.