Memory drove me to the edge of town
and told me to get out. I refused:
Never go to the second location. So we spent
another night on the highway at a tricked-out
speed of light, memory shaking me awake
with reflective signage, second sight,
pixellated nerve systems pretending
to be you. I was fleeing what comes next,
the second location of never again, when
memory escapes me and every place will look
the same—same median strips, power-lines,
frontage roads to chain store parking lots.
[From Confrontation 116]
Megan Harlan grew up on four continents, attended NYU’s Creative Writing Program, and now lives in Berkeley, California. She is the author of Mapmaking, awarded the John Ciardi Prize for Poetry (BkMk Press/New Letters). Her writing has appeared in American Poetry Review, The New York Times,
