A Mythology
Pale rust, desert air
Dry dust falling
Over boots
On the ground
Repurposed past
The end of the line
The tourist trail
An abandoned mill
A mythology
Man at the center of everything
Chasing survival and permanence
In the autumn haze
A Pinyon jay bounces through the brush
Scattered seeds on the wheel
Of the abandoned talisman
Framed by red rock rising
Prickly cactus, smooth steel
Flowers poke through the cracks
Baked by the sun and the wind
And the sand, speckled by sweat
Dropping to the ground, from
My brow, and her brow and
The brow of the assembly line
Worker in Detroit
Turning bolts and screws
Until he can’t turn no more
Until the whistle sounds
For the flat-bed truck
The freight train, or
The storeroom in the suburbs
Somewhere outside L.A
Before things got really crazy
Where a boy and his family
Watch silently from the sidewalk
As the car rolls onto the floor
Shiny and unspoiled
Bought and then resold
Driven to the desert
Where it lived for awhile and
Died
In the rain
That used to come
Before it finally disappeared
Doug Hoekstra 