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.