We travel forever but it's as if the car
is caught in an old forties movie:
scenery outside the windows
an obvious fabrication,
movement no more
than a sound machine hissing at us.

There is another music, though:
the baby, behind us,
among remnants of cookies she's discovered,
making sleep sounds.

When we reach Eugene,
open the car door,
fragments of the scenery fall out
from the treasure trove
she raided while we dreamed.

Duane Ackerson lives in Salem, Oregon. He has published several collections of poetry, and his work has appeared in such places as Rolling Stone, The Christian Science Monitor, and Prairie Schooner. He has received an NEA creative writing fellowship and several Rhysling Awards from the Science Fiction Poetry Association.