The Lone Wolves

I’m standing on my father’s back porch,
smoking a cigarette put out the night before.
The elementary school is letting out,
and from where I stand
I can see the line of long yellow buses
and the gleeful faces behind glass,
pressed tightly to the window panes.
I don’t watch those kids for long though,
because I never rode the bus
when I was their age.
 
My gaze falls instead on the
solitary few who troop down
the snowy sidewalk towards home,
their eyes on their shoes, the lone wolves.
Where I grew up, I was always in
walking distance of school.
I walked the same path everyday, down
a long, stick-straight road where the
trees on the horizon never seemed to
get any closer.
 
I’ve walked my share of straight lines,
followed echoing footsteps along
Rue Crescent in Montreal, ran
the blues down on Maxwell Street in Chicago,
and rambled barefoot by the endless
Lake Michigan shoreline near
Sleeping Bear Dunes, but these all seem
mere jaunts compared to the two-lane
city road that looms like eternity
before me now.
 
I always had time to think
on the long walks down that road
but I forget now what I was thinking then.
I’m wondering what’s on the minds
of these lone wolves. I’m wondering if
the trees seem to be getting any closer
for them. I take one last glance at
the expanse of asphalt that is so much
a part of me, and I’ve never felt older
than I do right now.