A Faceless Statue

By Chase Robbins

A Faceless Statue

On this road there are no visitors

To dream of.

Grey and brown clay putrefy and blister

Ingrained in the earth, antiquated, romantic,

And seemingly unbreakable.

The dead writhe below a shawl of cloud-salt.

A possum holds his position under a mirthless sun,

Following the trail of tires, restless

As decay and pensive, in a shell of memory,

The whole tawdry town swept in

The bulge of his pitless eye-glow.

A cactus shimmers back like a dazed-beetle or rusted

Car over his playground of razor-glass.

The vision is sterile as a magazine ad.

They once brewed seven kegs of sour rum.

The chewed rafters seem ready to subside

And with them that chipped steeple

Of worship, repentance, mothy-incense and bells

By the illegible stones. All around her the sand rises

And rustles in its severe slang,

Corroding the reminder of thunderous trucks and gasoline.

Further West, the moon will be frowning

Shadows---

A chilled night for brittle-rodents and ghosts.

Even her bones are purple with frost.

She waited for the storm to give in

And was received, rather, by a dustwized figure.

Pallid and poised, a vulture of sulfur,

Fossil of absent gold, every chisel and feature

Repressed by a patch-faced valley.

The clocks will exhaust it in time:

Each staked-branch snaps like a spine.

A Fallen Sign