After the three hour drive south down desultory highway 11,
during which, dazed from cigarette smoke and gasoline fumes
and making a thousand comments about virgin mouse fur
and wondering if we were there yet and giggling and whining
until we were ready to throw up but not on the upholstery
and finally feasting through the car window on wild cherries
we picked from the scraggy tree leaning over the gravel shoulder
while Momma found a discrete bush well out of sight
but not too far nor too difficult to reach in open-toed sandals,
we finally arrived at the top of the escarpment. Far below
sprawled the tree-clad city of North Bay, and beyond that,
glorious sparkling Lake Nippissing with its shallow sandbanks
beach cabins, sun and islands drifting on the far horizon:
heaven on a con-your-parents-for-everything-you-can-get bun.
