I-5

Through clouds of sunlit dust and fields bare
to scouring wind; through dry grass and barren
sheep shorn of summer growth, my dazzled stare
finds every familiar thing turned dead or foreign.
Road, laid like a lash across naked hills
cuts through landscape like a knife through cream,
across closed eyelids like windowsills,
in whip-curved weals, scars of serpentine.
Wheels turn and turn and god-mills grind fine
in country well-known as an old nightmare's stable
where mileposts pass in a slow picket line.
Fatigue and the wind dance in telephone cables,
constant companions on an endless drive
riding the white line, the edge of the knife.

Available! High-Voltage Lines, Knocking from Inside