Thanksgiving Rhyme for the Road 

I remember having Thanksgiving dinner.
Once at a bus station lunch counter.

The turkey breast
Tasted like tennis shoe rubber.
The gray, coagulated
Giblet gravy was stiff as jello.
The bus station smelled
Like cigarettes and bacon grease.

I was eighteen years old.
It was my first Thanksgiving
Away from family.

The romance of the road
Was delicious.
Tennis shoe rubber and jello gravy
Tasted like freedom.
But it wasn’t the same as home.