Run the Red Lights. Ed Skoog

a burglar.

Driving

      Like a diplomat with an assassin

      closing in, I never take a second

      way home, draw my string figure

      around Topeka streets, stairstep

      and spiral through neighborhoods

      split and stitched across railroad,

      highway, and river. I’ve never known

      anyone’s body as well as I learn

      each turn the turn an idea makes,

      luck-damaged and sprawling grid

      which compels me to connect

      each street with bouquet of song

      unspooling in the passenger seat.

      Beyond the city, I want to hear the whole

      concept album, drive to college towns

      for better radio, remote chapels, the ice

      cream store north with its one

      pinball machine featuring Kiss.

      The travel placemat from before the interstate

      recommends scenes along Highway 24

      including Topeka’s Ira Price Cafe

      east of the cloverleaf. Breakfast is any hour,

      chicken is a specialty. It opens in time

      for church, air-conditioned and modern.

      People in the petite houses of Kansas

      look out windows and nothing