Roadhouse
Out the car window
trees move quickly past.
Clouds stand still.
Parking lot empty to the fence,
to the road, to the horizon.
Wind-whipped grass blades,
naked dandelion stalks
compete for the cracks in concrete.
Windows stretch from corner
to corner and you see through
the nailed up boards
where the dust line-dances.
Sun spins across the concrete
shredding hems of heat
before do-si-doing to no good end.
Past the farm implement company
surrounded by beetle-shaped chaises,
their metallic bodies never able
to crawl beyond these plains.
In front of the Killpack Trucking Company,
turn left, turn right, turn around,
turn in any direction necessary for away.
At Sixty-Six
It’s a typical Seattle day: overcast, cold, raining,
the streets reflecting a hard shimmer,
laced with the red and green of changing streetlights.