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I never thought we would ever come across them, but somehow we did: mailboxes perched on galvanized stakes and diners sheltering elderly insomniacs staring into the irises of blue plate specials as the figures of station wagons staggered down Main Street behind venetian blinds drawn tight against the heat, peeling by the lone sign sitting on the hill: thank you for visiting…come back soon! (never)
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twin streaks of dissonance
stretch themselves across
the waiting nevada heat
beckoning creatures
their spines curving inwards
throwing themselves across the pavement
bones hewn from pallet limbs
oxidized bedframes
sticking in all ways
serve best
to catch a affirmation
some misconstrued signal
of reassurance
from the plastered oncoming portholes
grimy land yachts
of edsels, fords, chevys
submerged in canisters of despondent kodachrome
their pilots
spewing conditions, clauses
false perceptions of virtues
embittered by misspent youth
erased by schoolyard tremors
regained with ice cream socs
they shoot us skewed double takes
preceding our cries
before twirling their haughty fingers
over chrome thresholds cracked low
and skimming right on by.
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“what do you miss most about san francisco?”
i had been been expecting something
far different than your curt reply
slumped on overturned crates
searching for a specific something
through underlaid sores
snipping black, blue, violet
colors
engrained within the ribbed canoes
adrift below
the concrete slip
lake tahoe
a valley and two straits removed
from the painted ladies
picturing in my head against the warped lenses
of a idyllic viewfinder
you doing twenty
bombing down hills
on your fathers old skateboard
swerving around cable cars
when golden strips pierce through fog
threading themselves through the archways of
the golden gate
illuminating a squat rock
smack dab in the middle
ol’ alcatraz
instead
you shielded your diffused eyes
against the clippings of overloaded peterbilts
migrating west
and spoke of luke
how the day he trailed you home from school
wedging himself against the door
when you finally worked up the courage
to tell him no
he wrenched away the receiver
leaving it to dangle
dull, limp
the operator touch tones sounding off
when your fingers clawed
the bleached kitchen vinyl
your ma wouldn’t want to know
she never was one
who really cared much
for nobody high above
when sunday wanders around
peddling their sums
visceral absolutions
withheld
against stained glass barricades
packaging a crumpled gabriel
splayed across creaking rosewood pews
your pastor shook his head
turned his back
then
you flung a bible
which busted wide open
masking across the tiles
his mangled words
all the proverbs, corinthians, ezikels
and by diesel glazed sundown
fifty miles away
you watched my friends
crack into smiles and bray
in sheer delight as we cling
our frightened
nicotine charged
selves
to the railings
bracing against the exploding cacophony
of a hulking steed in motion
greenhorns
untainted by superstition
trapped within
the time-hewn walls
of this convoluted
rolling
prison
we are
free.
“i never missed anything, really.”
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under the peaks of the dusty sierras
the sun begins to slink
forsaking the twin streaks of hardtop
grating fast beneath our callused feet
highway signs
melting away
into nothing more but bent smears
temperas of amber, silver, green
arcing across your soiled cheek
much like a sophomore essay
grandiose notions of a silken ride
torpedoed by the clock’s waning pry
staggered paragraphs
harboring ruined testaments
reviewed with sunken eyes
stopping short only from the stamping ribbon
to search
the nails holding court
above stray cinders of newports
on pointe
with reluctant keys.
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Long after the world slips into night and the nebulas and constellations slip out of their pouch and weave their lines across the darkened skies like peeling asbestos fibers ringing the open reefer door, I shamelessly dream of them: palm fronds, glistening with seawater and some sort of tropical dew, laid out on the deck to be dried, mashed, and rolled into pale manila paper, primed with a dollop of India ink before being set alight, with grandpa's old Zippo, and being sucked, in a good long drag, into my twofold lungs, those sweet vapors of paradise…solace.
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