have adopted the stretch of interstate
just before my exit into Pleasant Hill.
What is it about this congested freeway
that so excites their parental instinct?
Hope that a Smart Car or Infiniti
might deflate Christ’s “I am the way”?
Proudly they own up to god-parenting!
though unlike moms & dads whizzing by
at 80 miles per hour, they do not boast that
the family genius “is an honor-roll student”
thrilled that their own, accident-prone tot
cares not a jot for “Intelligent Design.”
Atheists & Freethinkers, I-Hop, Jiffy Lube . . .
all burn with desire to nurture needy roads.
But is that enough to make them good parents?
as devoted to their tyke as its real mom & dad
Caltrans and the State of California?
I’ve yet to see such foster folk wipe litter
off an oily face—or kiss away boo-boos made
by the slings and arrows of outrageous Big Rigs.
Latchkey parents, are they not too busy
with their causes, services, and products
to give this road much travelled by
the love it needs to grow up to be
an 8-lane, pothole-free, functional adult
bejeweled with oodles of Botts’ Dots?
(Gift of a doting Godfather in Washington.)
Is it not time for Social Services to step in?