Music of New Jersey, New York,
and Pennsylvania rarely drifts
too far north. But when storms
wring the tropics into cloud,
angelic strains whisper from oil
refineries, gasometers, square
yellow brick factories, and even
colleges erected in mudflats.

You disdain the post-industrial
armpits of the working class
from which flourishing weeds spring.
You dislike the sulking rivers
that flow only when no one’s looking.
We’ve spent the darkest possible night
driving within the afterglow
of Manhattan’s expensive refuge.

The highway signs in the Bronx
offer Upstate or New England
so we’ll surely veer right and east
and hope our tires don’t go flat
before the atmosphere thins enough
to breathe without an aftershock.
At three AM we have six lanes
in either direction vacant.

The music wants to bull its way
into the rock ‘n’ roll hall of fame,
but the surf at Asbury Park
stiffens like dribbles of candle wax,
the Poconos and Catskill resorts
go out of business forever,
and Philadelphia recites old tales
that authentic history belies.

Let’s drive all the way to Maine
and leave the neon spangles
burning with insomniac glee.
Let’s splash naked in tidepools
still vivid with declining species.
The music may not find us
even with every map unfolded
and that rusty old gaze affixed.