Filling station grandmother

she left alberta long before
the summer heat applied its locust passion
and trekking where the greenery
became a drinking gourd formality
onto mossy rocks we go
with a notebook and a ruler
to describe in multiple perspective
that which only her employer could believe
bended willow carving wind today
along a bank that's slipping with the flood
a bridge you need has washed away
there is no choice but to return
to your ancestry
and plug the chord into the socket
mass transit computations will relieve
your roots are showing now
the upper midwest tan lines bared
the tin of braces on the stairs
this railway lion roars your name
it is the duty as a lover
to be crested beaked and flutter
at the sound of summer crackling
like a fire
until you wire home your report
there's nothing left to do
no one renting you
work a month or so by cleaning windows
on the cars you fill with drafts antiquity
maybe sell a can of soda
toward a radical key
lets unlock that door together
when her merchant gloves come off
on the road back to alberta