Flip-flopping between Kerouac,
Miller, Jeffers, Ferlinghetti, and me, she
seeks an answer
to her female question: 

Why! 

It’s a zigzag route—a skyway
network with real weather
leaking in. She takes it
again and again: bank 

to bank, civil
dawn to civil
dusk, Atlantic
to Pacific, instrumental 

to spoken
word, digital
to analog, fold-out
to GPS, root 

cellar to high
rise green
roof, concave 

to convex, at rest
to in motion, addiction
to rejection, black 

butterfly to ancient
barnacle, female
to male—what was she thinking 

asking them to ask me? She should have
left it at the river.  Either side
of the falls would do.