
Mapping Lost Continents
The gravel submits to my wheels
like a chain gang might, these
nubs of rock, the stone fruit
of a pillaged landscape.
Behind a bottle store, a string
of broken men simmer, screw
top wine in paper bag botas,
bad mouthin’ everything
but times back when. Dreams
salt-tamped by the bursting sorrow
of hobbled circumstance. Thistle,
nightshade and hogweed scurrying
over the hump of the past, over
the loblolly suckers and rust
buckets, tendrils creeping
through the trash. The cracked ribs
of weathered fences unsteady against
tar papered sheds. The serrated shade
of whipped trees claimed by lost dogs.
Along the riddled seams
of untended buildings a riot of insects
loots the abundance. My rig shudders
over the ruts, the rocks breaking like hearts
ripped from a sacrificial earth.
Published in subTerrain Magazine