what is death? a
middle-aged man
in a volvo, collecting
payments and
favors?

i met him once on
his road trip from
new york to
california. i imagined
death streaking across
america, the way the
ground shakes and
swallows its people.

i didn't ask him anything.
i was afraid of his answers
but he keeps files on every
living being and sorts through
them when he gets bored,
picking people off like flies.
i figured he had heard
about the likes of me
before.

is death the object of a
mid-life crisis for a god
who got a little too
close to the sun and
got his feelings hurt?

maybe that is the
answer after
all.

he left me at a truck stop
off the interstate
in anniston, alabama.

i didn't catch his name,
but i think we'll be
introduced again
real soon.

The big gray dog home with a Walkman on my chest ,
The long drive from Anniston , hitting every small town
to the West ...
Driver please drop me off in Hapeville , destination Kelleytown or
Covington , anyplace on Earth will do , anywhere but Fort McClellan !!

Cold , clear creek water hitchhiked from Alabama , caught a thunderstorm
just the other side of Anniston ..
It rode into Palmetto at the stroke of midnight , jumped off a wall cloud and hit the ground running !
Straight down Main Street taking everything it could carry .. Pine straw , old newspapers , bubble gum wrappers ! Oak leaves , bottle caps and fast food napkins !
The storm came and went , city life returned to normal  , a hundred gallons of well travelled transpired water now has it's eyes set on the city of Savannah ..
It'll bide it's time in the heat of Palmetto , laying in a storm sewer waiting to be called skyward ... A one way ticket on the 'Evaporation Express' ,
riding within an eastbound thunderstorm , dropping in on another little city to clean and cool the street , meet at the bottom of a hill to start the journey all over again ..