She has packed
a book for the bus journeys
and a couple of

sets of clothes,
a necklace and a sketchbook.
She wants to

spend the summer
elsewhere, a city, another
small town, just

somewhere else.
She hopes she can hitch
a lift north-west,

so she sits
on the dry grass by the highway in
the dry heat of July,

waiting, watching
the cars pass, headed in her direction
without her.

But she will not
follow their trails; instead,
she gets up, brushes

the dust from her skirt
and begins to walk. She beats
the road with her boots

and spells out her
own spontaneous poetry
through the asphalt

ink ribbon, the landscape
a fresh sheet
fed into her typewriter.