Fragment of a Dream

Jesse tripped his heel
as another truck rumbled by

He fell on his back in the dust cloud
kicking like a goat
scraping his hand
on a sharp

Rock

He wiped his eyes
and regretted it
Blood smeared his face now
Burning
one

eye

He got to his feet

He pulled a black neckerchief
from the right back pocket
of his worn jeans
and wiped blood from the cut

It wasn't deep
just

Long

He looked down

Blood stained the right leg
of his jeans
He spit on the neckerchief
and did his best to wipe his face

Who would pick up a hitchiker
Spattered with blood,
He thought?

Nothing but tan dust and scrub brush
As far as he could see in
either

direction

Not a car
Or truck
Down the silver-black shimmering

Ribbon
of

road

that
stretched away
into
the

distant

shimmering
haze

Albuquerque
1997, 2005

See the original poem on my personal website, wesgreywolf.com

First posted 12-14-7 on the original Whistling Dog.

Shades of Gray

It's a sometime thing;
I've never quite been able to shake it:
That lean of a sweatered torso
And tightly Levi'd legs --

Casual, (but not "cool"),
Nonchalant;
Unsuspecting and
Self-absorbed, (an inevitable challenge) --

Against the damp concrete
Pillar of a building --

Watched through the window of a bus
On a rainy evening --

Still commands my eyes,
Benumbs my body,
And unhinges my jaw,
(A little).

Going home on the bus
from New Haven Green
Wednesday 10/22/1976

Poem Three from "At Home,"
a six-poem collection,
published in New Haven, 1976

See the original poem on my personal website, wesgreywolf.com


First posted 12-14-7 on the original Whistling Dog.