The Bone White Road
They laid and built a new road;
in the heat of the day it looks
like a stretched curved spine
along which newly planted trees
grow their skimpy wishbones
as they file along the verge.
There is no shade to be had
just the thin oatmeal stalks of the trees,
their skinless stiff shadows
penciling in a marching sun
as it carves out graphite periods.
Somebody thought to put a fountain
in a bald space by the road
close to a beige housing lots.
Each new home is tantamount to the other.
Apparently beige will not offend
the eyes of any colorblind buyer.
It’s not a good fountain, not decorative,
it’s the kind of fountain to be found
fronting small industrial units;
the bone road circles it,
as if those who walk its arid path
will pause to admire the utilitarian art,
the listless spray of water.
In the heat of the day
it looks like a burst fire hydrant,
the sun does not paint it,
for the font is too sterile to reflect
any kind of rainbow illusion.
A little further on, the road
pauses to die next to some hardscrabble.
At roads end there is a scattering
of broken and splintered bones,
concreted residuals
of the suns dominion.
There is only one route home now,
back along the lane
to the head of the spine
where the colors of the world
were abandoned for the bland tones
of white and beige.
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