Texas, 1995

The Texas landscape
extends for three days
in any direction,
an improbable aberration
of time and space.
I drive through this and
distant objects creep
marginally closer,
so that we begin to
long for even the
simplest of markers in
this spare horizon;
the barn,
the dilapidated gas station
still clutching its faded
Sinclair sign, an
immeasurably long fence,
this intersection where
I consider the likelihood
that turning in any direction
will take us precisely
to where we are going.

-Martin A. Bartels