CJ Giroux

Moving through Northern Michigan

I think of your Mercury idling, between Standish and Sterling:
you wait for traffic to clear, the heavy cologne of diesel and cement dust,
your gas needle halfway between E and F.
White lines of lanes re-emerge and elongate into progress,
the green slopes and ravines of West Branch.

Sometimes I think of you on southbound 75, counting rusting Rams
(you knew your makes and models like any good Detroiter):
tailgates down, racks of antlers protruding, reaching toward asphalt.
You imagine a trail of spoor, spreading out, marking speed—
the wind rattling through windows opened an inch, your feet on the dash.

I think of you wearing your favorite blue flannel as a jacket,
unbuttoned, and your hair, scented with the smoke of pine, birch,
illegal emerald ash. Scanning for the Perseids,
you point upwards with a half-empty bottle of PBR,
as if toasting fullness, the sky, an aunt’s August wedding.

I think, too, of your stories of home: blood ties
and just blood, the drunken compliment offered sideways,
the open-handed slap. How the Northern Lights
change from lime green to smoky yellow,
their wavering outlines like your bruises healing.

CJ is on the faculty of Saginaw Valley State University. His most recent chapbook is *Sheltered in Place,* and he is on the staff of *Dunes Review.*