Out Back

behind the dying diner he leans out of the long-travelled wind lights his last cigarette tries not to wonder where the freight trains go or how it feels to count so many stars from the red roof of swaying boxcars now he curses the road that brings business and takes away the young women tries not to wonder how the hawks feel when they track along the blistered smudge of highway like the dusty diner he is a maybe stop between accidental roadkills clouds down from montana lie about rain his grimy apron riffles in the dusk breeze now he is a bone mast on a sand ship now the screen door hinges screech the festering fat cook accuses when you gonna bus table nine the apron falls . . . never says the new fugitive

Doug Thiele

Copyright © 1999 Doug Thiele

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