Ali Shapiro: The Meaning Of Leaving

Maybe it was there
all along, in our shirtsleeves,
on the heavy trees, every time we turned
left—as in the opposite
of right, which is also
wrong, as in the mistakes
I’m bound to keep making as long
as I long. I still love you but I can’t
stay still, that’s why I’m bound
for the coast in the old
truck blazoned with rust, crest
of snow, crust of salt, the bed
that was our bed, you
in the rearview for hundreds
then thousands of miles—you
the cornfield, you the semi, you
the sirens pulling me over
and over. I’ve got my eyes
on the road’s gray throat, its soft
shoulder, its sign that says
yield. Maybe I was here
all along, driving away in the driving
rain, in the space between left
meaning remaining and left
meaning already gone.