afternoons in the countryside

at dusk, i'm sitting in the bed of an archaic pickup truck

58 ford, painted rust maroon with a stolen hinged tailgate.

my limp legs dangle above the road/below as it sails by,

earthswept, mangled and rocky transient beneath the rubber

wheels that pound the highway. i'm holding a twig– right hand,

end of a sandalwood branch, colored a burnt-mud sienna,

spotted alabaster white and knotty like an arthritic finger.

i push it to the ground i travel on and it digs a line, crossing

the dusted road, like a virgin picket fence in an open field.

i dig for oil with my pickaxe twig, held in mile after mile.

and this line goes on for yardsticks, leap years, lifetimes.

the dust expells across the highway we travel, the wind

spit bursts of ragweed and stale air, inhale. i'm still drawing

this line, watching it from my throne in this speeding truck,

and i cling to the truck's dented side panel, to my stick.

i see visages, old and familiar friends at the end of the line

far off in the distance, their faces/features fleet away, gone

like the passing of orange trees in the southen panorama.

i wave, they plea and i'm spent. i've left. i try to yell adios,

my teeth clattered, my words fasten the interior of my throat.