[tracilicious]

Bulldozers sit sentinel
in the middle of the highway,
Refusing to submit to the will
of passing cars,
they answer only to mountain superiors.

Every few hundred feet
a telephone pole stands stiff.
The earth’s erection
a quiet mockery
of the twisted trees below.

Smoke from my Nat Sherman
hovers and swirls and stays for a moment
before leaving me through the open window
to join the dark and low slung clouds above.

With it memories flake off
like dead skin,
mix with the hot wind
and turn to ghosts that line the roadside.

In the rearview mirror
I can see the eyes of the departed,
glowing,
and growing more distant.