Rock Road
By Robert S. King

—a wish for Susan

It's not a public road
you take to the promised land.
It's the road you build ahead of yourself
and drag behind you,
stone by sharp stone,
blister by sweating blister
beneath the sun you follow down.

You'll meet no traffic coming back.
You'll feel alone near your birthday
until you've placed the last stone
at the edge, at the dead end,
at the last sign of earth,
where the skin cools into puddles of light
and the road named for you
pours like water into your own heaven.

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