View at the Edge

At the edge
the clown’s make up
meets
razor nick skin of the man.

Fast food/gas station/motel
cluster,
make up the clone,
American gaudy,
LA to DC.

I, this oasis edge pedestrian
alien at terminus tide line of jetsam’s
tattered plastic graffiti
most visible in Spring,
gravel chemical aqua at
snow melt salt line,
and beyond, hunched uneasily
the domestic weatherboard evidence
of this intersection ghost
chilled out
by deep fat KFC heat,
bungalow cheap rent now,
a wrecker’s lunch.

Three slumping halloween pumpkins
grin from low porch perch
pastel walls behind
blanched to near invisibility
apart from these infrequent footfalls
at the edge.