thursday, june 18
a stop in julesburg
i drive around looking for an open diner or cafe
and wind up with a country-fried steak at the flying j
there's something appealing about the place
— its geometry or structure, its situation
near the river, the flatness of that bottom
ground, the bridges and embankments, railroad
tracks and grain elevator elements
the municipal power plant and the low-angled
light across nearby fields
(the town paper is called the advocate
just like where i grew up, although i'll bet they've
got better production values)
there seem to be at least as many fat young mexicans
with children as there are fat old white people
coughing over their truckstop dinners
and i wonder what it would be like to live in a place
like this, although i'm not quite sure what i mean by
like this, and there's the other thought
that maybe once you've grown up in some american town
of a thousand or two
you know the main things you need to know about
these places
it's a lazy thought, looked at one way
everything is so specific, so particular and local
maybe you go five miles and you don't know anything at all
whatever
it's late and i'm tired,
listening to the thunder and the 18-wheelers
outside a nebraska hotel room
making sense, even if i don't.