Thin ribbon of road somewhere between

Buckeye and Apache Junction, broken

Pavement that keeps ending in a shimmer

Of heat haze and desert just a mile ahead,

Though the horizon goes on forever.

All only and exactly what it is - and yet

The dry wind lifting little clouds of dust

Into metaphor and myth -smoke signals;

Cloudless sky so empty a single saguaro

Is holding the whole world in its arms.

The sun searing everything to a teary blur

Of stunted buttes and sere stubbled mesas,

Yet there is a kind of peace that persists,

And the feeling that wherever you are now

You're lost, in a place never meant for us.