Highway Town
Sauerkraut festival, sauerkraut ice cream from a tiny paper cup.
Places you could get lost in. Bike path that wound by the old airport,
abandoned playground with its huddle of bouncy animals
on their oversized springs. In the slough, Doritos bags
flashed from the mud like kingfishers. Blackberry lane.
We held hands as we biked up the hill, nine miles back
in time for dinner. I was as lonely as anyone, I suppose. The pastures
full of yellow daisies. Blackberry thorn he drew across his forearm
when I raised my voice. Newly built house that was empty, dark-tinted
windows staring lidlessly into the cedars’ lined trunks. He said
the owner’s wife had cheated, left before they could move in.
An abandoned Caterpillar flaked yellow paint into the weeds.
Its giant conveyor-belt wheels like something smashed, or smashing. Vines
twisted into the cab, its rusted skeleton seat. I loved the wreck, the ruin.
The myths that lingered in sidewalk cracks
like dandelions. The girl who’d gotten pregnant
slowly pushing her baby on the park’s new swing set.
That awful beige & green.
