Going back for what you'd forgotten

Late, real late, Tuesday and the air is

so thick we can swim through it,

we’re driving, hemorrhaging brake fluid

and you say goddammit,

I shouldn’t be taking you around like this anymore.

 

Sprawl. Temple against the window.

Stars are city lights but

they’re holier down here with us-

7-Up and Love’s

and stadium lights for empty lots.

 

They say home is the generator of longing,

where the person we always wanted to be

never appeared, became someone else,

 

some passenger to Pueblo late late Tuesday,

pretending to be asleep but keeping open

for the city. Then for the sage. City again.

Sprawl, sprawl and fog.

Where do these motels find their people?

The cloud factory sleeps.