Member-only story
Poetry | Horror
Texas Roads
Beware those crude thoughts when the rubber meets the road.
Endless, flat, Texas roads bear their load,
Heat rising, shimmering in sweat, sea tang,
Salt, and the tarry blood of dinosaurs.
Sweltering, unrelenting, vulcanized
Rubber rolls the Rolls across the oilfields;
Where men with dirty fingernails and thoughts
Drill crude — thinking of power, unrefined.
Heat rising, shimmering in sweat, sea tang,
Skin salty with the tears of crocodiles —
She stretches, sticks her hand out the window,
Tests the wind. The road, straight as a Boy Scout,
Its never-ending dotted line — “tear here” —
Sweeps, lethargic, through her heat-simmered thoughts.
Time for fuel; a quick top-up at the pump.
Skin salty with the tears of crocodiles
His fingers burn, kissed by dragon’s breath,
Awakened with a jolt before Texas
Roads warning rumble strips him bare — rips him,
Robs him of control. He lights another,
Buys cheap truck stop stickers: Brakes for Pleasure.
Aims for Amarillo by breakfast time.
