Someone's dog, not quite home,
is grinning in the weeds below
a sign for Stuckey's pecan rolls,
one mile. In the quiet light
of dusk, shelves of ice protrude
from the muddy banks of a ditch
that runs between the road
and a field where blackbirds rise,
their cries glass breaking over
rutted stubble, the only other sound
the white noise of traffic,
now and then the random buggy
or phlegm-throated motorcycle.
Up ahead, trucks and neon,
Judyville, maybe the same song
in someone's head as when he left.
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