Route 50
Like years, the desert
has no edges—red dust, red
dust condensed, busted ash—like years,
a corrupt uniformity we cut through.
:
Where miniature houses sail out
over shelves thrust up, where air breaks
down on rock, on conglomerate
that defines a sky.
:
Or dream dry salt seeps
from pores in your calves.
:
In one settlement, a headless
fire truck rusting by a shed, plastic
cowboys. In another, rancid
frozen confection.
:
One year, the lakes were too white
when we went by.
:
Where we go trailing
our own wake of glass, like years
we enter, enter again, stop seldom, and rest
in our own dust impressions.
[Poem originally appeared in FIELD]
