One Time in college, I got a ride from a guy named doug

                                              —Labor Day Weekend, 1984

He showed up in an Allman Brothers tee
and a ’68 Mustang, a roommate of my roommate’s
boyfriend. We headed east and around Indy, I tuned
the radio to a scratchy voice in Kankakee preaching
the apocalypse, and we laughed at the idea of eating
cicadas and crickets. Doug said he’d rather die than down
a waxworm. Near Greenfield, we lost the station but found
a burger joint with greasy windows. The parking lot

smelled of onion rings. He gave an embarrassed grin
when the waitress asked him how long we’d been
together and I said, About three hours. Catsup spilled
on my jeans, reminding me of a cut I got opening a care
package from Mom. For midterms, she’d mailed beef jerky
and Valium tucked inside a Tylenol bottle. Years later,
my brother would tell me how it was a federal crime.
As Doug and I drove past soybean fields on our way

back to the interstate, we hit a sparrow with a thud
and he hit the brakes. We pulled over to find the bird
lodged in the grill, its leg broken and pointing down.
Doug pulled it out like a book wedged on a shelf
and laid it on a patch of dirt, the gentlest gesture I’d seen
a boy make. Once we got back on the highway, I tried
to find another doomsday station, but no luck—only static
and hog futures. I didn’t know we’d never ride together

after that semester, didn’t know he’d change schools
when his dad got sick. I had yet to know the end-of-days
wailing Mom could make until Dad died years later.
Somewhere in Ohio, with the sun behind us, we passed
a farmer shooing cows into a pen, arms outstretched,
driving them home. Although I know I couldn’t have,
I swear I heard the clang of iron when the man closed the gate.