I must go back to Lamont

Take the 184 south

Past the dust bowl dead

And street names like Halleluia

Where boarded up storefronts

Look blindly on the refinery

(Nobody can say what it makes so fine)

And the dusk heralds mountain breezes

Blowing cow smell one day, chemical smell the next.

There’s a boy who lives in a trailer behind his granny’s house

Another boy who dresses all in black and stays in his room

Girls with hair trailing down their backs walk along the road

Carrying Mexican sweets and cell phones

Their parents purchased from their work in the fields

When I go back again

I will search out a place

The library, perhaps—or maybe the park—

Someplace where I can sit undisturbed and out of the way

And let it all wash over me: dead and living.