Route 11, Summer

Knowing that all bretheren in the church of the road
live for the white lines and the swooping powerlines,
and those casual looks over the shoulder at times past,
and the dashed meals at greasy shacks next to the highway.

Sometimes in winter I wish it weren't.

Past closed eyes are the abandoned motorcourts turned junkyards
where the hopes and dreams sit under dust or carbourators.
On the battlefield where the cars whistle by on the interstate or
from the covered bridge that spans the flood low in the valley beneath it.

Behind the houses are tangled clotheslines.

There's the store with black speckled linoleum, that smells
like 1948, like tomatoes and watermelon and they smile as the screen door bangs.
Across the road the wildflowers frame the mountains and down the road
the sounds of the woodyard break the summer air to shatters.

The sky's blue above the TV antennas.