White Asphalt
A hundred-acre wide stretch of half-dead grass
bisected by a slash of gravel
a quarter-mile long
The drag strip
where bales of hay and the occasional deer
meet up to lay down rubber
The removable roof
fell off the back of the pickup years ago
shearing the latch clean off
so that it sits unfastened
in the acres of unkempt foliage
as the rust spreads in charred blotches
Across the surface of its spine
Tarmac bleached white
by midwestern sun
winks brilliance
demanding driver’s-seat visor yanking
to avoid blindness
While overtaking opportunistic expanses
occupied by ignorance and wild wheat
romanticized into opulence
The fifteen minute cruise
through burned-out neon
is torture in the back of a borrowed minivan
and the heat lamp cuisine thrown clear by the wayside
feels about as weighty as any ore
they could have pulled from the earth
before the union dissolved
An undersized t-shirt
stretched across hard young shoulders
whips across the strip on screaming two-stroke wings
accompanied by vulture calls
and the crushing wave of cricket song
blasting from evergreen subwoofers
Breaking the silence of their absence
Like the lonely whistle did all those years ago
When black lungs and blue collars
burst forth from the earth
to birth promise onto hope and
secure domestic tranquility
or
something like that
So here I sit
Curled in the arms of hairgrass
blinding myself so I don’t have to see
what so desperately demands to be written off
and declared refuse
by the eve of revolution
No
It transcends condemnation
and defies expiration
And it certainly doesn’t want to be reduced to rhyming
in some
overused couplet
It don’t need your charity
And it sure ain’t accepting handouts
Might have something left to give after all
When the Ashland freight line
glides catastrophically over the tracks
just as the very soul of humanity is tearing for sleep
You can still hear the whistle
calling tradition into action
descending the creaking elevator into the heartland
And when the sun is setting
you can hear it dragging back up again
Face painted black with national blood
dying to wash the soot from its crying soles
But ready to swing the hammer once more
On the right kind of summer eve
You just need to call out to it
and it’ll be right there alongside you
Raising dust
against a thousand stars