The cold cuts through my coat
relentless in its purpose
to chill bone, to expose weakness
in this arthritic body.
To the west lie the Sierra Nevadas
towering ghosts, magnificent hosts
to this desert of frozen sand.
To the east lies misery
a familiar path along I-80
some 90 miles from Reno
and into the heart of this heartless country.
Thirty miles out, my stations fade
and I am forced to trade rock for country
it is a compromise of the desperate.
The landscape, in its various shades of gray,
reminds me of my childhood nightmares
when the sun never broke the dull monotony
of my imprisoned self
and there resided a horror just beyond the horizon.
Scattered along the interstate
like some bone-thrower’s prophecy
lie battered names, John, Luke, Chelsea,
spelled with the iron red rock
that once called oceans home.
simple statements of existence
dotting the miles of gelid sands.
Ahead, a patch of green among the gray
testimony of survival
among the fire and ice
or a visionary’s hallucination
of a Gomorrah’s revival.
Lovelock, the sign read
A warning to both quick and dead
Prufrock, my mind countered
A town with its trousers rolled
And the smell of straw on its breath.
Five miles later, my turnoff
Some sliver of silver against the red rocks
And sage scented landscapes
Along the rusty roads
Until, when the dust settled, I stood
In front of a barbed wire Camelot.
Inside this steeled fortress
Huddled the refuse, mistakes, defects
Uncivilized remnants in corduroy blue
Repentant and revenged, the beginnings and the end
Here too, resided for ten to life
my best friend.
It was here I had come to ask forgiveness.