You’re blind-folded, driving the old truck headed toward No Name Lake on the gravel road. You’re picking up speed, stones pinging off the frame, but it’s been a good truck, so you think it will probably make it. What does that even mean? You won’t die on impact? You surely won’t motor up the other shore. You won’t drown? Part of you wants to drown to make your head shut up. The truck breaks through mud, muck that slows it down but on it goes. You brake at the lip of the shore, wheels tasting the water. You could start swimming or remove the blindfold and find your way home, but the truck’s gonna keep moving.

 

Elizabeth Kerikowske is the author of 10 chapbooks and three full length books. She teaches Ekphrastic Writing to adults and volunteers at an alternative high school. Writing is breath, a daily habit. She was awarded the Community Medal for the Arts in 2017.