The Alphabet Game by Heidi Slettedahl

In the absence of billboards I always find the same J.
A sullen part of the journey, the sign my only savior.
          I don’t remember the name, just that it’s there,
          engraved on the Adopt-a-Highway face.

In memory of someone.

Enough to push me past the tricky letter, move me on.
Road construction and closed lanes,
a truck always in front, always slow, impossible to pass.

Kay Ell Emm Enn Oh Pee

I listen to the radio, as it secures its sound and then retreats, impossible to hold
until the exit to Rochester,
where the Qs and Xs and Zs are easy to find.
I always get to the end before I stop, liquor stores and plazas helping out.

A left at Mayo, a right to parking.
They trust the families to pay the fees, at night.

Sometimes I shave a half an hour off the fee,
the envelope still heavy with quarters and fat with dollar bills.

Sometimes I don’t pay at all.
Leave the honor system behind.
Become the bad girl I never was.

If you knew you’d be there daily, you’d buy the weekly pass.

I should have bought the weekly pass.

I wish there were a monthly one.

I wish.

Heidi Slettedahl is an academic and a US-UK dual national who goes by a slightly different name professionally. She has been published sporadically in small literary journals, most recently by Picaroon Poetry, Vita Brevis, Dream Noir and I Want You to See This Before I Leave.