Zeke Hudson
travelogue (I)
heat pushes through
cracks in the windows
the narrow ahead the still trail
into a lake of muddy silver
& gas stations roll by
slowlike rusted dried
counters thick with dust
beyond sagebrush melts
into jaundiced grasses
restless sun-baked dirt
i imagine the first homesteads &
how the air might pull the water
from my skin how i might
work myself into the soil
rockladen bleached mica
cutting like diamonds hidden
in eroded buttes arid pastureland
for cattlehome fence-cut
roads zig-zag to far-off ranches
waterholes uranium-cake sun
post-noon glare deep
on my brow redding itself
until until there are no distances
but the ones i feel
from chest to chest from
lips to ear no voices no more
& measure can’t quantify
my warm hands on the wheel
can’t describe the sluggish arcs
of each mountain pass each
glistening straightaway each
drying roadside lakebed
spilling skyward cloud-
forming, haze in the late valley
tires blending sibilants
as tumbleweeds take flight
looking for rest from wind oh
how the west was wonderful
& rainclouds like jellyfish
hunt the hills darkly
travelogue (II)
in the car i am trying not to think
about love instead i cling to
snow-chalked outlines that limn
browning ridges & steel nets
practicing control on highway-
bound debris the air chill
on our bright skin with
speakers rattling a new album
until the gorge appears right purpled
in dusk gradated water
softly the shadows
from peaks across the lake
& wind-whipped patches matte
the surface i feel giant
blades churn the still evening a stoic
farm of white windmills black
in the night the west
where heat lives on by day’s end
clouds coiled glowing
electric as stovetop filaments
even as a passenger this
is the loneliest drive i am
alien next to a stranger in a wild
land where our breaths cut
our lungs the heat from the vents
cuts our lungs condensation cuts
through the chest & further
my eyes water from feeling
cold the roadside all
softly green from hard grasses
hiding themselves under fog
blankets in one field sheep
in one goats i saw & also
the stony facade of a failing wall
& gaping dead windows but
as we passed abandoned rails
the steel veins of industry
the lifeblood of culture
i could never feel so small
on my own i could describe
each travelogue as closure
or as willingness to be swept
in the fires that come only
in summers & lick hotly
the pines eyes open parting
i am still not thinking of love
Zeke Hudson is an MFA student at Boise State University, where he watches sports and eats too much pizza. His most recent work appears in West Wind Review and Stolen Island. His chapbook, Blue Lake, is available from Thrush Press.
