What We Did For Our Summer Vacation

Kryptonite for FM

3000 miles, and I wished for
listing pick-ups and vine-ripe tomatoes
in the Delta.

I received:
corn and soybeans,
rows straighter than God’s;
a fox
that crossed the highway
between Onward and Rolling Fork.

In the towns no one comes to anymore,
the storefronts are Kodacolored with age and hard times
like Eggleston snapshots. A pigeon lies skeletonized
in the display window
of what was once—
when Cotton was King
and this Country an Empire —
the town’s best department store.

Further west, swallows
skim the surface
of a hotel swimming pool, translucent, transcendent.

Would that I could —
Could what? Bank so effortlessly? Dip and wheel against the sky, taking for granted
panorama, mountains that become a woodcut
etched across the sky?

Off I-10, a storefront exhorts:
Clean it up or Give it Back
while the call-and-response of the Voice of the South
spills from the car’s speakers.

Breaux Bridge,
Are you listening?

Lafayette,
Are you listening?

Henderson,
Are you listening?

I am between one place and another, I wish to
never stop
driving,
I am listening
to the radio station that professes to be Kryptonite for FM.