Wayfarers

Sylvie It Takes Forever,

the ER does. We agree on that.

Mostly we don’t talk on the drive in

because I can tell he’s trying

not to bite his lip through. It isn’t

until we hit the Traverse City

city limits that I catch up to it:

I let a strange man

in my car. He’s my age,

give or take, but his silence,

his dark tan, light eyes, how bright

the sun has bleached his hair—

there’s nothing in-between about him.

He’s an adult. For me, eighteen has only

ever been a way station. The tee

holding up the wiffle ball. All of it

practice for a life I wasn’t living yet

until I was. Tonight, coming to

on US-31, the hospital looms up

on the hill above us

like something I should be afraid of,

but I’m not.