dummy

Like briars on a broken highway

You turn the wash skillet
And I am going…

I bike to Mentryville there is
An old house there
An old school and oil pumps

Pepper trees on the path
Then sage
And marigold?

I wonder what these are—
Flowers inside the canyons
Are new to me

The sun isn’t new
But it’s late not early
The sun is going

Down
Down
In and around Mentryville

The first oil was discovered here
In the 1870s
Now it’s all dirty and broken

Pump parts and sulfur
Abandoned things
You find in these canyons

Ahead is a broken highway—
Washed out by a flood once
Now covered with thick briars

I wonder
If I took a picture of this
Would you still want me?