Rest Stop, Eighty-Seven Miles from Asheville

by Linda Blaskey

The young man with the tattoo
covering his face tells me

he has ridden his '62 panhead
from Oregon to Maine

to pick up his girlfriend.  Now
they're on their way south, to who

knows where, towing the old cycle,
its bored-out engine used up.

It's hard not to stare at the tribal
swirls and stitches, the darts and dashes,

the sunbursts that blacken his face;
the lines that uncurl from under

his shirt sleeves, his cut-offs—
and I worry about the woman

traveling with this man whose skin
is a shield held against the world.