Metromess then west,
past city pseudo-ranchs-
megabuck homes
on manicured pastures-
white fences,
scattered live oaks
with flat bottoms
marking the limit of the largest goats' reach.

Further on-
hard scrabble farms-
rows of rotting posts
and rusted wire
lean roadward-
convincing evidence
of the greener grass theorem
testified to by twenty generations of half-starved scrub cattle.

Two lane patched blacktop
thru run-down towns
with clapboard shacks-
dirt streets
and a few fine new homes
with landscape lawns-
successful natives moved home
looking for the long gone and never was.

11/01/2004