Tonight's Poet Corner: Exodus

Exodus
by Belinda Roddie

No more jugs of happiness to pour
into your bloodstream. We've gone
down this road too many times. The
asphalt's cracked and wearing thin,
like aging bone too brittle to fossilize
properly.

I'd like to stay, but the vertigo
is no longer digestible. I've eaten
enough spinach and chicken to get
me through the desert like a
bedraggled Moses. My people were
let go, but I was never free.

They told me I should've broken
these suburban chains long ago.
Now I have the strength to
split the white picket fence with
a hatchet. You stock your fridge
with drinkable shame. Take a sip,

and the iron gets thicker and heavier
around your ankles. I'm miles from you,
in a truck on a repaved freeway. You're
drunk on artificial satisfaction. I'm
breathing fresh, rural air again.