Flashing pulses of opaque light, echoing between my
eyelids and the dark window; mind playing mix-and-match with

(with acknowledgements to Abbey, Baudrillard, Paz)

The chief innovation of the American West is the roadside motel.
Stoplit highways have since given way to speed traps and Gas This Exit,

What can I write, without cliché, overcoming
the poignancy of the centered photograph,
the tokens, the kaddish among

vague relatives? I’m wondering; sliding
down the wet Carolina hillside, showers
rumbling down through the leafy summer,