193rd E. Ave. & Admiral
5:45 p.m., Monday, Jan. 20, 2014
Route 66 feeds into Tulsa here, County Line
Road to some, where rural exhausts the city,
A passive crossroad, nodding its head
In the early evening, one block south
Of the radiator rising into the sky, round off/on
Button circled in red next to the yellow M,
American monograms so familiar we have thrown
Them into trunks we no longer open.
My broken brown Chevy leaks oil
Onto the desert of the abandoned Homeland
Parking lot, criss-crossed with work trucks,
Trackhoes, two RVs that crews sleep in
When they aren’t building the new Sonic
Next to the old Sonic across the street.
The day collapses into night, and quiet dreams
Mutter in the lanes that separate us.
–Shaun Perkins
Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry 