Poem for Saturday, September 8, 2012

Leaving Hernando

conquistador country
sunny delta driving
dripping Memphis blue along
the way


i. Hwy 51

At the Citgo, I interrupted the clerk with
his Greek conversation. Put me down
for nineteen, I said. Why don't you get
twenty, he asked. I wanna buy a drink.
Oh. Then I headed north, past the Love
Cemetery and the obligatory chain of
southern Baptist churches. Past the ice
cream shop where jean-shorted men
devoured simple vanilla cones. Past
the intersection that had no business
existing. Past the stoic Mississippi
oaks planted by post-antebellum hands.
I left you near the lake with thoughts
of lichen on the willow.


ii. I-55 N

Breaking north again, Tennessee a blur.
Gunning for the river bridge. The water
blocked from view, I knew it well enough.
Blue-gray in color, bordered with
barges. Catfish and motor oil. The things
we're too afraid to contemplate. When
they fought that war, I bet they never
dreamed of a sky bisected by steel beams
and hot asphalt. I bet they squatted at
the bank, cupped their hands in the water
before they wrote to literate lovers.
Sweated out a little death. Halfway over
the bridge hung the sign for the Natural
State.


iii. I-40 W

All these rusty structures claimed by
kudzu. Fields of lush-green soy four lanes
across from wheat stalks burning
dry. I was welcomed into Palestine by
racing clouds and verses from Mark.
I drove the stretch mile dedicated to a state
trooper. To have your legacy carved out
between piss-ant towns in agrarian Arkansas
is sheer poetry. I held in a piss from Hazen
onward, coasted at fifty miles through the
road construction. This interstate goes all
the way to Los Angeles, but once the tractors
and combines cease, America starts to shrivel
up like a worm.


iv. Hwy 31

From Lonoke to Beebe, the churches
spring up again. Apostolic thrown in the mix.
I swung into a Valero to relieve myself
in an Employees Only restroom and didn't
buy a damn thing. Sun-scorched, the
thunderstorms of yesterday were further than
a memory. On the radio, Bob Dylan pleaded
with Queen Jane persistently. It wasn't even
five o'clock yet but I wasn't melting. Hwy 38
stuck its thumb out on the left. I turned,
headed for the place where we first learned
of each others' existences. All of that gold
de Soto might have found is suddenly
pyrite.