“I feel aloneness all the time
and loneliness, I hardly ever feel.”
—Townes Van Zandt

Near Odessa, I see nothing but
rain, smell nothing but oil

and manure hanging heavy in
the air. Even when the sky is clear,

at night, seems something’s always
coming down the windshield,

dust devils, dead grass blown
across the highway, glare from

semi lights catching bugs smeared
along the glass, sins in the wind.

It’s a long road from home
to Colorado. Long before I make out

the first boulders, the foothills, there is still
the tedium of New Mexico

winter between here and where
the Rockies rise, where the sky starts

coming down to me.