The Old Car Crawled

The old car crawled along the dusty gutted road,
Its tires threw high clouds that billowed like smoking eyes,
Into the high blue of unceasing wordless mornings.
And along the rocks, the reptiles

Sunned themselves. And the moon
Shone pale in the bleached dawn sky
(It had hung in the night like a rocking ship
Whose passengers dreamed in her hold of the eyes

Of wheeling chariots, and were lulled
To sleep against the heavy weight
Of the abject morning to come)—the car wheels
Spit sand past the rocky well where girls in braided

Hair drew forth cold water, past
The pulsing scratches of a hopeful cricket,
Beating his echoes blindly, listening
For the hidden thicket shadows to answer him in kind.

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