I broke the seal
of the highway bottle
the greasy liquid shot
of a place unlike Eden
a place called
Plains on Texas

The sickness came on like a roar
the shaking and the sweating
love all nonsense now
reality but a blur
Dairy Queen red
running over my eyes
catastrophe walking the strip
of a gravel pit morgue
dead end ruckus and muck
sandblasting the sky
with a dire need to survive

Like I said the sickness
I was ready to tumble to eternity
nerve endings bursting
without joy
or meaning
or purpose
the stench of oil so thick
the desolation of a wounded place
sticking to the sweat of my skin
and I was ready to snuff it
snuff it loudly in Plains on Texas
choking on an imminent stroke

I sailed to the roadside tables
trembling and feeling wildly ill
I needed a pill
a naked, sleek pill
to kill
the present-tense situation
the coma I was driving toward
a cure was badly needed
for a stroke was knocking at my door

The shop windows reflected dead light
glass depictions of gray headstones
kaleidoscopic blurs of broken eyes
and shimmering wanderers lost
in flattened fields of hot wind and demon paste
and I was ready to pull to the side
to let it all go in a dirty lot
discarded moments of plastic and paper
soaring like wounded doves
soaring and circling
the stroke victim
clutching his brain
and catching his breath
gripping the end of the story
like a blade or a torch.