A Long Slide

Grey skies, bare sycamore trees

sub-zero and a stiff breeze


the world a sarcophagus in ice

yeah, I got the news


why am I wearing a button-down shirt,


a vest, and leather soled shoes?



tall hill
sidewalks heavy with two feet of snow


people need things,
they always do


I said I'd go


Main Street in the valley,
twenty percent going down


general store halfway up the other hill


and me on this side of town



can't get traction


the best I can hope for is to slide


I ain't dressed for this action


ah, this is gonna be a hell of a ride



I am sliding down in a crouch and I am not in control
taking everybody's problems down with me
as fast as gravity allows me to go
stop light at the foot of the hill
traffic running both ways
hasn't the highway department sanded?
my mind counting backward the days
and the nights and the embarrassments and the sacrifices and the pleasures and the triumphs and the defeats and all those god damn sacrifices and the bad times and the good times and the summers and the winters



then I'm sliding up the other hill
still somehow on my feet


I come to rest at the roadhouse


and collapse back on my seat


not thinking I got lucky


not thinking how I could have died


only thing that's on my mind,


how am I gonna get back up the other side?