Listen to poem audio here.
I got here by red car
via Ogallala, Echo, and Blythe, a sibyl of roadsigns
counseling against stray men in striped suits near
facilities hemmed in barbed wire
by reading solace in contiguous lines,
remedy in border
by wading states cropped in corn
breast-high, mouth-high, eye-high
though the plains flatly refused to reach up
by listening to radio preachers’ static on redemption
while motel King James, spine frayed, flyleaf shorn,
advised Turn Back, Forswear, Turn Back
(but tell me—how could I do that?)
by manifest ambition, regret
cudgeled from decision
by Routes 8 and 10 highlighted yellow
(this the fastest, the safest) yoking Mid- to West,
a jagged slash resolved to scar—is leaving
ever seamless? I got here by red car.
