Texas barks like a dog at the end of its chain
in the rear-view mirror, a winter storm bulged and
flashing, growling low as we cross the Red River.
In Oklahoma there’s a dirt road named Choctaw Kennedy.
Separate land from country, peel it back
like snakeskin and cicada shells as naked trees
sink in shadows, gold crawls along hillsides like
window shades, our automobile outline paused
in motion, overlapping pebbled shoulders, bleached
prairie grass, road construction, plastic flower
arrangements and wooden crosses serving as
roadside graves, someone’s daughter now belongs
to the turnpike. In a field the color of pencil shavings,
an old man fixes his message of damnation and love, and
vultures conduct concerts of buffalo, shredded paper
tumbling.
Ahead in a runoff ditch, a drainage pipe, and
I anticipate its passing, for in a brief moment,
I’ll see through to the other side.
Originally published in New Plains Review: Fall 2016.
Evening Panoply 