12    R   3   BC

This road with its sharp tongue twists  
and mid-west terrains, cars welcomed    
by open hearths and business parking lots,    
or swallowed by the cracked throat of narrow dirt    
paths. There's an abandonment here of forlorn    
pavement, rogue weeds overthrowing guard rails    
and worn asphalt strangled by merciless roots.    
   
The farm houses are tiny against the grain of wheat    
labored into the landscape by pregnant mounds of earth.    
Old bridges sagging under metal weight, a listless flag    
dangling over yesterday's forgotten pile of cinder block  
and automobile remains. Faded tongues of mailbox lids    
line the parched rain trench, the broken arm of a swing    
from a melancholy limb, the absence of a child's laugh.      
   
My mind is being dragged by the rusted barbwire fence  
to the stop sign ahead, where a fork would routinely    
carry me into a city of congealed cars and cavernous    
parking decks. But, today, freshly cut chrysanthemum    
soiling my fingertips and embedded debris of dirt,    
cool against my knees beg me to choose the opposite    
route and drive onward with no home in sight.    
   
~