leaving Doppler scoop melon junction at night ( a 'Last Picture Show' type poem)
a paradise wash-n-wear
a vegetable stand town
a dusty four corners town
a highway never came kind of town
a flat quiet themed
seamed deep still a cake-walk
neighborly kind of small town USA
a gas-n-sip
a bar-n-grill
a tabernacle drug store
a general goods and hardware store
all before you hit the first
and only traffic light kind of town
a town where every eye knows
your name and mood
by the way you walk
greeting you or not
your body lines up
in calendar-stretches
in time in chalk outlines
everybody knows when
your Grandparents birthdays were
but also everybody knows
all of the things that
a small town like this
feeds to a community's silent history
and everybody knows
to be careful not to
bring the cold
even in leafless Winter
when dust and dry skin
is sandpapering dreams
with less light and more pies
steam covers kitchen windows
mashed potatoes are waiting for gravy
and you are waiting for some other
variant clock to swallow
so you don’t have to follow
the same path as every
rotary dial generation before you did
old cars are still the best though
as you smile past a two-toned
1957 Bel-Air Station Wagon
that is the one truth
in this one horse town
still worth believing in
you say to yourself
lighting up and swilling down
this is how you wear a small town
all the way through your thoughts too
even the odd blue and
strung words like fishes
filet the wind like wishes
on an eternal birthday cake
you bake every day
as you wish for something
to drive you away
windows rolled down
as the freight train
ghost whistles
into the depot
in the dark
in the distance
gathering behind you
pressing the pedal
finding the portals of night
have been waiting for you
all along and
they remember too
that you have mapped
your way back
many times before
using only hand-cupped stars
and a longing
for a home cooked meal
and the sweet wrapped feel
of the comfort you get
behind the wheel
EJR ©
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