Draw and Pull

Ten hours out of Oklahoma,
and what can exist here,
with red Kansas highway spent beneath?

A livelihood amidst vacant storefronts,
and long-rusted steel machines?
Perhaps. Even Goodland has its way.

Morality under the dusty bedspreads,
behind the faded, floral prints of these motels?
There is a chance.

Movement past these crumbled streets,
a chance for East or West?
No, there can be none.

Night holds us--a motel room--
feet pound cement, a child screams,
a motorcycle snarls, revs and fades.
An urge for motion
and morning comes.

West again, the border and Colorado.
A deep-seated fear relieved,
the land still unchanged.

Denver comes muted first
in concrete gray and charcoal blue.
Then monuments--a gold-spired university,
a stadium, but ever less than
the edging horizon.

A city of newness, of remedies, and of wealth.
A ridged basin, a lake enclosed,
the odor of pine, sumac and we stop
fifteen hours out of Oklahoma.