“… I don’t know if his hands are moving

but I bet they are somehow I’d feel

washed over like that too and be so

proud of us …”

 

who we were when

Isn’t it a great country he asks me

as we cross the Panhandle

for the second time in three days

I suppose I answer but

why would you say that

right here right

.

This paved road he says

through these fields and

trucks carrying every imaginable

somewhere many trains you think

we passed in both directions between

these poles the government

look at them put up a long time ago

just to bring electricity so these farmers’

fathers out here could run their pumps

to water their crops in their own fields is

it’s better when we all

work to

.

Eyes on the semi up ahead I

don’t know if his hands are moving

but I bet they are somehow I’d feel

washed over like that too and be so

proud of us if just because this clouded sky

makes driving easy the horizon visible

in all directions from the waving line of

this two-lane road outta Dalhart but

.

This feature is also available, in slightly different format, on Medium, here.

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Frederick Ramey is the author of the novel Comes a Time, published by Fomite Press in 2020. He is also a longtime editor of literary fiction and memoir, the co-publisher of Unbridled Books, and the founding director of Leaping Man, a not-for-profit producer of performances, arguments, and artifacts in Colorado. You can find him at leapingman.org.

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Featured image from Pickpik.

Broad Street Blog: Pandemonium 2020

May you live through interesting times.