Badlands

Driving Texas is like driving South Dakota,
only more so. There is the same plain
that won’t be broken, the highway that will
not bend, because it hasn’t for hundreds, or
thousands, of miles before this. There are
truckstops with the same idling rigs and big
billboard promises—”We Never Close”—
though some, frankly, have no business
being open. Don’t you hate billboards, the way
they slip their arm around you? It could
be South Dakota. It could be badlands.
One minute they are your good “Friend
On Whom You Can Depend”—the next,
they bold-faced lie to you. Don’t you hate liars?
So help me, this is the truth: driving Texas
one afternoon, three weeks ago today,
I saw a car swerve and spit a woman
from the passenger side. I saw her shoes fly
as she spun to the curb like a hubcap.
If you care to ask, this poem is to tell you,
she picked her shoes from the pavement.
Walked away. All of us here are just fine.