Illustration by Jane Gaston from "Lost Hound," Robert Ashcom, The Derrydale Press and Millwood House, 1999, 161 pages

If you’ve ever walked the interstate
You know the dream of summer thunder with
No rain and heat in solemn surge like fate
Gone out of sync―where eighteen-wheelers brew
Their shouted, tire-born songs with diesel breath;
And fast food wrappers feed the session’s mood.