Down Emma's Arm

At the corner of War Highway and the state road,
a white wooden cross shares space
with a pair of creosoted utility poles.
The cross is embellished with fabric hibiscus,
a flower more at home tucked behind
the ears of flirtatious dusky-haired girls
than on the high plains.
Spirals of thin wire hold the flowers – tiny rust spots
marking where predecessors were bound.
A not-yet-faded price tag reveals the blossoms
cost $2.99 per bundle. Self-adhesive,
scarcely-reflective mailbox letters name the cross.

At night, the bright wood reflects traffic signals' glow,
advancing ever on through their amber-red-green-amber
progression. Down Emma’s right arm,
a telephone pole across the road mirrors her cruciformed shape.

State Highway 114
Lubbock, Texas

Not much is white

The distant blue wedge of the Apache Mountains is too far away to shelter a god-forsaken road, connecting what a tornado left behind in Saragosa and what Interstate commerce abandoned in Pecos. Out here, not much is white – still-standing whitewashed walls of a roofless house, blanched bones. Or crosses.

Planted in a mound of reddish sand, the back one stands on a flimsy wire tripod, a misdirected funeral offering. In front, on a more elaborate marker, new, red-white-blue flowers hide names, dates.

And this: a Christmas wreath hanging backward and a litter of tiny stuffed animals, road-dirty and gritty from wind-powered sand.

State Highway 17
Reeves County, Texas