Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

i

Orange and blue neon chain names,
Sidewalk-tan stucco walls,
Call out the red motels,
Sprawling glass-windowed car lots,
And fast food hubs,
That grow like brick-faced teeth,
From the parking lot spaces of 1 & 9.

He drives past a billboard,
That points out golden arches,
Two miles ahead:
A burger-meal deal, free gallon of gas,
For the spare change
Suspended in sticky Coke residue, Armor All,
At the bottom of his Oldsmobile’s cup holder.

Has the road widened,
Buildings dragged aside
By the flatbeds
That load and unload
Giant steel garbage containers?

As likely as room numbers switched,
On the hourly-rated doors
In the middle of the night?
Hiccups of uneven asphalt
Are the only sign of trickery.

ii

He glimpses over the skyway -
Bayway oil refinery burning
Bright flame in day time.
A stretch of sun smoking black gas
Melds the short sky
Into a monument to petroleum.

The road is all engineering
Straightening when it should curve.
As if stretching to freshen the eye,
To make him want to keep on
Toward an undiscovered closeout sale,
A ride so smooth in cruise control.

Scribbles of tire rubber like black crayon
Mark the North-South meridian,
Diagonal streaks from drunk kids chasing
Last round at the Seven Gables.

He whizzes by
An Indian car salesman,
Red tie flashing,
Who stares down the road
Waiting for his new Mazda,
Figuring a bottom line against
A house in Colonia, an unpaid orthodontist bill.

He stops where the cemetery was.
A billboard shows the brown, rolling hills
Of a new development landscape,
Prestige living you can afford,
For thirty years at eight and a quarter.