half a ghost town

(Luning, Nevada 4/2/08)


that vacant highway under a gray-white daybreak:
salt & sand country stripped clear of power lines—

we were one self sleeping & several others
awake: pulling into town at nine a.m.,

sun invisible behind the dry cirrus,
opaque with an after-thought of translucence,

like a body you ought to know—pulling into
town, nine a.m., a roadside power pole laid

out flat, a black upholstered porch chair dusted
white, desiccated, left empty a long time—

peripheral apparition of your face:
my profile glimpsed between your eyes & the half-

liminal galvanized single wides where life
persists like a west wind rattling sheet metal


Jack Hayes
© 2016