Union Pacific #9

Somewhere amongst star shards &
                        volcanic outcroppings I couldn’t
see against a 5:00 am November
sky the fm evaporated

it was east of Jordan Valley it

didn’t happen all at once the
signal dispersed across 
depths & distances & ghostly
sagebrush in the headlights almost
100 miles from daybreak
                        a diner’s unlit windows
dark in the darkness

fractured constellations broken yellow
line invisible
                          cattle moving across the rangeland
a sodium light a semi truck’s
enormous exhalation
          a broken yellow
line the star shards south a-
bove California a
          stone pinging the windshield a
              star fragment chip the
distance between constellations
I could hold that in my hands


Jack Hayes
© 2010

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