there is a place of endless sky

where the stolid road stretches beneath your feet

virtuously

this is where the defeated freeway ends,

where you take a left

into a town of stillness and sunshine

because there’s no other option,

where hunched-over trees tangle with the young

and ivy climbs up aged white farmhouses

with west-facing windows that shine in the evenings,

where the only tangible traces of their occupants

are gently rocking porch swings and well-fed cattle,

where the perpetually empty bleachers at the high school

might even prop up the clouds

nature nurtures this isolation

Helios drags gold-lit fingertips across dusty paths and

cinnamon-flavored raindrops smack the ground and

lonesome children scatter dandelion daydreams

on a map, there is nothing

half abandoned lots in a half abandoned town

and the dying breaths of industrialization

yet

standing here, gravel breeze sanding your face

there is something:

a sprinkling of lovers, who rest and rise

with the sun day by day, night by night

with love like a half-life