Jeeping corrugated roads,

gusting through fords and slapping

boughs and saplings on the windshield,

we’re trashing through a world

we usually walk in reverence.

Today we want to eat mud and dust.

We want to render ourselves

crude as children’s drawings,

lose our superfluous depth.

The gnashing of the engine revs

in first gear. The knobby tires rip

the track and spit muck everywhere.

We enjoy this fresh new texture,

rendering an old worn surface

in the most vulgar shades of filth.

Wildlife flees as we approach—

muffled flutter and slap of paws.

We’ve never been so loud before,

never tried so hard to simplify

and fill the gap between ourselves

and landscapes we try to occupy.

Evening chill finds us splashing

through a streambed where spring trout

spawned, the current slack with drought.

The western sky blushes for us.

On the far bank we stop and shut off

the engine, stretch ourselves

after a day of jolts and grumbles.

We could lie on the moss and let

mosquitoes and blackflies avenge

the erosion we’ve inflicted.

But we have to get home and wash

the filth from our blank expressions

and try to recover ourselves

from the rough and roar of this day.

Whoever lent us this Jeep

will smirk when he sees us flat

as paper dolls. We’re satisfied

with this one day roughing it.

We’ll go home and sleep a soft sleep

and the tracks we’ve scored through

the forest will outlast us,

like signatures on cave paintings

scrawled long before we evolved.

© William Doreski

William Doreski’s work has appeared in various e and print journals and in several collections, most recently A Black River, A Dark Fall (2018).