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Driver’s Song
I shall never reach Danville, Ohio,
Danville distant and lonely.
Black car, small moon,
in the back seat beer.
Because I’ve forgotten the roads
I shall never reach Danville, Ohio.
Over the plains, through Indiana,
where I was lonely also.
Black car, yellow moon.
My dead father keeps watch over me
from an upstairs window.
What a long way from California
and in what a fast car—
invisible to the soul.
Ahead I see death moving slowly on the road.
I know I will touch her clothing
before I ever reach Danville, Ohio.
Danville, distant and lonely.
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Paul Hoover’s most recent poetry books include O, and Green: New and Selected Poems (2021) and The Book of Unnamed Things (2018). With Mexican poet Maria Baranda, he co-edited and translated The Complete Poems of San Juan de la Cruz (Milkweed Editions, 2021). Professor of Creative Writing at San Francisco University, he also edited and, in part, translated, The New World Written: Selected Poems of Maria Baranda (Yale University Press, 2021).
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