Spanish spoken in the neon fog
breeze blowing along the border
through the sadness of a payphone
all alone in an El Paso truckstop
Sunday night, late autumn
I was 21
returning from a passioned rush to the West
the air was thick with grease and diesel
five hundred miles from a face I'd recognize
and no answer to my call.
Earlier, Moriarty, New Mexico- take out dinner
imagining the mythological implications of a solo desert meal in the Southland
as darkness fell
Las Cruces lights beckoned across the vast void of mountain shadow
but still so far to go until I got to where I wasn't sure I'd stop-
Motel 6, off 20, in Pecos
fitful aching hollow stomach sleep
while interstate truck lights burnt through the cheap curtains
The hill country was gray in November's mourn
I appreciated nothing
and drove on
stopping in Jackson, Tennessee when exhaustion demanded it
but not before Mcdonalds in West Memphis
where a guy tried selling me cocaine at my table
but I had to go to the counter if I wanted a sandwich.
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