Subject: Hello From the Road

I like going to the ends

of things, knowing

what is coming. Is it all

 

just green signs & malls?

Or do friends chain

themselves to cattle

 

guards, attempting

insurrection? Something

like a street is endless,

 

gutters funneling

the same dirty water

everywhere I go.

 

The taco chains grow

bolder as the right-

of-ways go on

 

& on, at grade or

below. Trucks with

yellow striping

 

play the asphalt

like a horsehair bow,

violence & violins,

 

sawing back & forth

between real time

& a somnambulant

 

waltz. I am stuck,

always in the middle,

eating chicken wings

 

at dusk, trying art

for the first time. My heart

& what it hearts

 

is not exhaustive, but

it will be enough to reach

you, or at least to start.


Also by Samuel Day Wharton