Whenever I go I see wagon trails,
rutted down the back of I-15
wound like braids through sidewalks, alleys
everywhere, it seems, where roads can cross
and sunlight drip like molasses.
They were such strange things to behold
these spine-carved lines that turned my ankles
scraped like tumble weeds against
the serging of my petticoats.
Back then, I merely twitched aside my hems
and passed them by as if they were
no different from the a line of patching tar
curved like a water moccasin along the road.
A trick of gravity, I thought at first
or else the harbinger of an earthquake
prophesied to shake the state about our ears.
At first they were no more than a mirage
dancing between the mountains.
But they came closer, until I could make out
the ghostly sweep of petticoats
the cartwheels turning up ethereal dirt
senseless and unknown to all the cars
darting past like slick water beetles.
Faces lined against a thousand miles,
teeth-cracking winters, the wind of the Great Plains
I watched them pass, a hunching line
eyes heavy with too many burnings,
too many exiles.