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I knew I wasn't in New York anymore
Southbound, I-89, Vermont to Long Island
Somewhere near Randolph,
one of those towns you only see
on picture postcards,
in art house movies,
and pinpoint black dots on a road atlas

These are the towns we pass straight through
these are the places we forget
These are the people we ignore

And I would never have known Randolph
And I never would have stopped
I would have kept my foot on the pedal
and soared by,
sixty-five miles per hour

But I know this name
I know this place
because my car's oil pressure gauge
went flatline at exit 4,
You don't fool around
with "STOP SAFELY!" messages
blinking on the dashboard
Something tells you
you're in trouble

Like a mirage,
a Mobil gas station appeared,
just off the exit ramp,
tucked into a white carpet,
sheaths of jagged, shaggy layers of snow
surprisingly busy with snowmobiles
truckers in workboots and parkas and knit caps,
and locals, fair-skinned and sturdy,
buying the Sunday paper and a pack of cigarettes

I pulled in, parking my unruly Volvo SUV in a corner,
ashamed and awkward and intimidated
by people who knew where they were going
and what they were doing

I prayed someone inside
the tiny store at the edge of the crossroad
would save me

"We're too small," the manager said,
never looking at me, ringing the cashier,
wiping the counter,
answering the phone
"We don't service cars.
You're gonna' need a tow.
25 miles to the nearest town
Don't worry.
25 miles is nothing around here."

AAA had to come to
rescue me
I learned a lot about Randolph, Vermont
in the two hours of my unintended visit to this
town, buffered by crossroads in the middle of nowhere

I asked Brenda,
the Mobil gas station attendant,
what people did in Randolph
and she told me:
"You're doing it."

Brenda bought me coffee
and lent me her cell phone
to call AAA
("Only Verizon works out here,"
she said)
We were the same age
Fortysomething
She'd rather be
a stained-glass artist
than a Mobil gas station attendant
but she already has grandchildren
she was abused for nine years
she knows how to open car hoods
she knows how to find dipsticks
she wants her children to join
The National Guard
I told her:
"I write poetry"

Driving home in a thick, white breeze of snow Sunday afternoon
Clutching the wheel for dear (not deer, ahem) life,
afraid my car would roll over
as two cars did just before me
on an icy bend on I-89 South

I saw a sign just like this



I thought I had stepped onto the set of Northern Exposure, a show I remember more for the cute Jewish doctor in Alaska
(okay, it could happen, but his mother wouldn't be happy about it)
and the nomadic moose in the opening credits

You see a lot of strange things on Long Island:
fake body parts pumped plump with Botox and gel,
Ugg boots and cuffed denim shorts,
Wrinkled in Time Grandpas in red Corvettes

We've got lots of doctors my mother wished I married
but we don't have moose



We do have the occasional MEESE-kite,
now that I think about it.
I wonder if MEESE is the plural of MOOSE

FYI: In Yiddish, meesekite ("mieskeit") are unattractive human faces.

Not that a moose isn't pretty in its own way.
It's an acquired taste, I suppose
Like squid
Like liver
Like gefilte fish

Beanie said to me tonight, "Did you know I saw a moose at the park today?"

Me: "A moose? Really."

Bean: "I think so. It was big like a moose, and it had a moose's tail."

(Because, you know, a moose's tail is its distinguishing characteristic.)

Bean, continuing: "But it was a long way away."

Me: "Like, say, in Maine?"

Beanie (laughs): "No, Mommy, at the park. Here."

Me: "Ah, yes. You said that. Here. In San Diego. A moose. How did I miss it?"

Bean: "You were at the swings. I saw it from the climby thing. It might have been a dog. But I'm pretty sure it was a moose."

Me: "Well."

Bean: "Or...it could have been a person."

Hmm. Could it be that we are not quite the astute observers of nature I had supposed we were? I mean, there I was all proud of myself for identifying a viceroy butterfly on a eucalyptus tree, and I completely missed seeing the large dog-man with the tail of a moose.

A tiger? In Africa?