Sheenagh Pugh: "What If This Road"

What if this road, that has held no surprises
these many years, decided not to go
home after all; what if it could turn
left or right with no more ado
than a kite-tail? What if its tarry skin
were like a long, supple bolt of cloth,
that is shaken and rolled out, and takes
a new shape from the contours beneath?
And if it chose to lay itself down
in a new way; around a blind corner,
across hills you must climb without knowing
what's on the other side; who would not hanker
to be going, at all risks? Who wants to know
a story's end, or where a road will go?

"What If This Road" by Sheenagh Pugh, from What If This Road and Other Poems. © Gwasg Carreg Gwalch, 2003.

Art credit: "Montana Farm Road," photograph by Mike Robinson.