Slouching Toward

How we left, cleaved our hearts
in two. In my mind
we are pilgrims, dirty and sweating
grit in the eyes, orange clay
in ragged half moons
beneath clawed nail beds.

Bonnets and buckles,
tatters in burlap. Funeral pyres,
wagons. Dust floes, sandy red
apparitions that blinded
our course to the west.

Lately I dream of deserts,
a trek. Boiling sun relentless
in its beating. Hardly in beams
but heavy columns yoked
across our weakened shoulders.

But then it is not so. Our distance,
an ocean, the sea. Steely birds
grind and whir, streak the sky
in earnest. Stomach hollowed
with a drop, a turbulent shudder.

Far below we carry along
a paved course. Outrun
our stumbling ancestors
with their high noons,
their five o’ clocks.

Those ghosts sink once
and over in the soft dunes.
Above I smile at the small hours
to pass before I see you again.

Along the highway we approach
the ends of the earth. Birds bounce
or quiver on half smug power
lines, all a hum and chatter.

I have not seen a road extinguish
on the horizon since the last time
I felt at home.