a chantilly matte of dirt roads has been
thrown over the countryside
the cobweb strings of compulsive snoopers
they loop around each hill
and hook towns to oil wells and
oil wells to pumping stations
they stitch fields to
barns barns to farmhouses
farmhouses to highways and then to towns
and the towns?
dirt roads are the back doors to
towns
but the roads are molten gold on summer days
when the heat sucks
us into its throat
and The Country is too
hot to handle
when that happens the women lie inside
with their potted plants and men come home
to lunch
when that happens the roads are merely
empty histories of our nosiness,
as deserted as a Saturday schoolyard
