After Whitman
       

Spun east on California I-10,
Terrified, exhausted, knowing what will now be,
I, a death, very young, over the ambulance, towards the yellow lines
        of eternity, the call boxes of uselessness, look no more,
Blind from the edge of my emergency lane, windshield crushed flat;
No starting eastward from Redlands, from the casinos of Indio,
From Blythe, from the south, from the border, the tourist bars, & the
        Farmacias,
From the north, from the irrigated deserts & bankrupt outlet stores,
Now having stopped, dirt where I'll soon blend,
Never to face home again, very sudden & saddened,
(But where had I called home in the first place?
And why now is it found?)

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Copyright © 2015 Joseph P. Wood All rights reserved
from Fold of the Map
Salmon Poetry
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission