Privileges of Travel

You can’t forget you purchased it;
this private tour moves you

by lurch and swing, recrossing 
uneven lines of rail and pitch-

black roads: the wide relief 
of scenery. You hurry

toward a river, toward the first
suspension bridge, aloof

as if the whirr of tires were 
the only sound among the sounds

repeating a belief that settles
like a liquor on your lips,

like a memory straying 
among your dreams in slow parade.

The movement is uncertain: 
is it light escaping other

travelers, or the shallow
curve of your own route

that disappears into the rearview
mirror, into the eye