Chapter 62: Road Trip Poem #17 – Summary & Analysis

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

The speaker begins by admitting jealousy of everyone, yet immediately claims she would not change anything about her life. During a sexual encounter with her partner, she tells him that each time is “one for the record books.” He responds with a philosophical objection: something cannot be special if everything is. The poem then shifts to a detached observation of boys who drum on surfaces and remove their shirts with one hand. A brief exclamation—“oh my god experience”—serves as an imperative to seize whatever pleasure is available. The poem closes with the speaker placing herself in a McDonald’s, grounding the earlier reflections in a deliberately ordinary, low-culture setting.

Key Events

The speaker confesses jealousy of everyone but expresses contentment with her own life.
She declares each sexual encounter with her partner to be extraordinary.
Her partner challenges her claim, asserting that universal specialness negates specialness.
The speaker observes boys drumming on objects and removing their shirts with one hand.
She urges herself (and the reader) to experience whatever pleasure is available.
The setting is revealed to be a McDonald’s.

Character Development

The Speaker: Shows self-awareness by acknowledging her jealousy while also insisting on her satisfaction. She romanticizes her intimate moments but is forced to confront her partner’s logical counterargument. Her final turn to McDonald’s suggests a willingness to find pleasure in the mundane.
The Partner: Only present through a single line of dialogue, but that line reveals a contrasting worldview—one that values rarity and sees over-claiming as diminishing.
Boys: Merely observed figures; their actions (drumming, shirt removal) represent a kind of unselfconscious physicality that the speaker may admire or distance herself from.

Themes, Symbols, and Motifs

Jealousy vs. Contentment: The opening couplet sets up a paradox that runs through the poem. Jealousy typically implies lack, yet the speaker says she “wouldn’t change a thing.” This suggests an acceptance of envy as a natural emotion, not a driver of dissatisfaction.
The Paradox of Specialness: The partner’s remark—“something can’t be special / if everything is”—crystallizes a central tension in the book: the desire to make every moment feel unique versus the fear that inflation of value devalues everything.
Pleasure as Imperative: The line “oh my god experience / whatever pleasure you can in this life” functions as an almost desperate directive. Cohen positions pleasure-seeking not as frivolous but as a necessary, almost spiritual, act.
McDonald’s as Symbol: The final setting contrasts sharply with the intimacy and abstraction of the earlier lines. McDonald’s represents mass-produced ordinariness, yet the speaker chooses to be there. The poem suggests that transcendent moments can coexist with—or even emerge from—the banal.
Repetition and Rhythm: The poem’s short lines and lack of punctuation outside of the single “oh my god” create a breathless, confessional tone. The repetition of “boys love” mimics the very drumming it describes.

Why This Chapter Matters

“Road Trip Poem #17” distills several signature elements of Catherine Cohen’s voice: directness, vulnerability, humor, and a refusal to separate the sacred from the profane. In just a few lines, the poem moves from a universal emotion (jealousy) to a private exchange (sex with a partner) to a public observation (boys drumming) and finally to a commercial fast‑food restaurant. This rapid shifting between registers—the confessional, the philosophical, the observational, and the mundane—is a hallmark of the collection. The poem also encapsulates the book’s recurring tension between wanting every moment to feel monumental and accepting that many moments are ordinary. By placing these thoughts inside a McDonald’s, Cohen grounds her lyricism in the everyday, reminding readers that poetry can happen anywhere—even during a road trip stop.

Study Questions and Answers

1. What does the partner’s comment “something can’t be special / if everything is” reveal about his perspective, and how does it challenge the speaker?
The partner values rarity. For him, calling every sexual encounter “one for the record books” cheapens the term “special.” The comment forces the speaker to reconcile her impulse to elevate every moment with the logical consequence that if nothing is ordinary, then nothing is extraordinary. This exchange highlights a central philosophical disagreement between them, and the speaker does not directly rebut it—instead, she shifts to observation and then to the McDonald’s setting, perhaps implying that she still seeks specialness even within the ordinary.

2. How does the McDonald’s setting function in relation to the earlier lines about sex and pleasure?
The McDonald’s contrasts with the intimate, potentially romantic sex scene. By ending the poem there, Cohen undercuts any pretension that pleasure must be elevated or exotic. The earlier imperative to “experience whatever pleasure you can” takes on a more literal, accessible meaning when the speaker is at a fast‑food restaurant. The setting also reinforces the “road trip” title, grounding the poem in a specific, unglamorous location that many readers will recognize.

3. The poem begins with jealousy but ends with a simple act of being at McDonald’s. How does the speaker’s jealousy inform her search for pleasure?
Her jealousy implies that she compares herself to others and feels lack. Yet she insists she would not change anything, which suggests a paradoxical acceptance. By seeking pleasure—whether in sex, in observing boys, or in a McDonald’s meal—she attempts to fill the gap that jealousy creates. The poem does not resolve the tension; instead it shows the speaker actively pursuing small pleasures as a way to manage envy and live in the moment.