The Long Tundra Crawl

Betsy Joseph

November 8, 2021

The ice storm that brought power lines to their knees in North Texas 

early January of 1979 also pounded the Panhandle, paralyzing I-40; 

I recall my return trip from Dallas to Albuquerque, stopping in Childress

to refuel the car and my body, thankful for the truck stop that remained open,

allowing me to seek brief refuge before continuing 

the cold-numbing/mind-numbing journey suddenly made more complicated

by the realization that my cat, left sleeping in her thick blanket

in the back seat of my Volvo which I had responsibly locked,

lacked the dexterity to unlock the door—locks now frozen on the outside—

and appeared unworried that she could not do so but I,

supplied with a handful of matchbooks lying on the diner’s counter,

worked feverishly in Jack London-fashion to thaw the driver’s side lock—

successfully, I might add—my awakened cat raising her head curiously, 

my heart pounding gratefully, and we continued the long tundra crawl to Albuquerque.

Poems by Betsy Joseph (Dallas, TX) have appeared in a number of journals and anthologies. Her poetry collection, Only So Many Autumns, was published by Lamar University Literary Press in 2019. Recently she and her husband, photographer Bruce Jordan, published their book Benches, which pairs her haiku with his black and white photography.