Driving to Cheyenne, the scrubs and tumbleweeds

move and fade in flashes through the darkness,

land devoid of light except twin headlights

and the cool green glow of the dash.

You were not born yet, and your sister was small.

I was hurrying through the night to another city,

another stop, another motel.

There was a pattern to it all,

check-in, a phone call home, and food.

Sleep was a visitor whose appearance came

infrequently at best.

New Mexico spread itself like a western quilt

before my eyes,

aridness a sensation to taste, like salt on the tongue.

Wisconsin, Utah’s snowy peaks, lost in the Colorado

mountains with the wind singing through

the evergreens, imprinted forever as the sound

of loneliness.

Jeff Davis

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