{one}
Preston Highway is hard and
yellow brown, an
Ohio Valley temperature
inversion parks the stink
on top the Watterson overpass leaden clouds coating the lungs
of the proletariat lumpen and
otherwise lining up aside the road
waiting for the 18
churches and check cashing
joints
suicide lane running all the
way down to the Snyder
the 18
runs down Preston every 15 minutes
eight,
nine, noon, four, five, six, nine-thirty
the wrong 18 dumps you out
short of Outer Loop
at the Cash America on Ulrich
in the sun or rain or snow or pure
cold or unbearable heat,
whatever the fuck is dealt on
that asphalt strip
its never as bad as it can be but its always worse
than it should be
{two}
Mexican places for whites Mexican places for Mexicans
bare tube fluorescent gold-flecked
white formica and Tecaté
whites point at the menu in the
Mexican Mexican joints
Mexican white places have secret
menus &
seat all the Latins under
curved glass at the front of
the converted Wendys
bus stop, hammered wet
cigarette tar, poison
fumes from busted catalytic
converters
broken cars making the right
off Outer Loop
accelerating up Preston in a
trail of stink
late, catching the 18 with the
stragglers
they’re not turning off the
blue lights, obviously
pull knit cap down over burnt
eyes up to Eastern Parkway
the 18, then a mile home
{three}
drunk and killing things with
punk rock, pulling
on a Tecaté 24 running up
Preston in the dank night
up about where Indian Trail
slashes across oily dark
swimming across broken asphalt dirt you feel as much as see
breathing chunked petroleum
sloughing off strip malls
{four}
perhaps not dark so much as
light at crazed angles
as negative light always people crossing the street
in the dark you don’t see them
just sort of hanging out
there in the double turn lane Mexicans Africans
Koreans Whites about half
dragging strollers
the prole lumpen and otherwise
defying death
hanging on the edge of the broken
asphalt river
{five}
all it is is
you wake up in
the morning
and find yourself
back out on Preston
fucked
