worth reading to the very end

Driving Montana, Alone

by Kate Phillips

I smile at the stack of Bob Dylan CDs

you are not holding in the passenger seat.

Storm clouds have gathered. My "Wow" rises

over the harmonica for your benefit,

but you cannot see that one sunlit peak


in the midst of threatening sky. The road turns

wet at the "Welcome to Anaconda" sign,

and I pat my raincoat, loosely folded

where your lap should be. "Anaconda was almost 

the state capital," I say, but that's all I know,


and you don't ask for more. You wouldn't mind

my singing and swerving onto the shoulder

for more snapshots over the car door.

And it's only when I get just south of Philipsburg

that your not being here feels like absence.


I want you to see these dark rotting barns,

roadkill of Highway One. It seems only you

could know why my eyes fill the road

with tears again when a flock of swallows

swoops through an open barn door

and rushes out the gaping roof.