Sure town

small town shore

kids studied me with 

discerning skeptical eyes

as I asked questions about 

"rout" 609, the girl ringing up

costumers in the supermarket
shaped like a barn asks whose

house I planned to visit

and what's the address,

I'm just trying to find the road

I tell them deflecting their 

questions for whatever

paranoid northerner's reasoning 

I could muster in my brain,

The kid in tight gray jeans bagging

finally rattles of a convoluted 

left-right-left, pass three churches
(holds up his fingers) then you'll run into
611 and camp grounds and
there on your right should be 6-o-9,

thanks I wave and head for the door running
the directions like a Rolodex through my
driver's brain until I hear the girl,
innocently blonde and bright
pink lipsticked, ask if I want
a paper and pen to write it down,

I'm not out the door and
could have easily turned back around
but I don't.