JEFFREY ALFIER

The Freightyard Prophet


Mojave's desert hills surge before him
as if storm-beaten seas froze to granite.
Shadows wilt like men in funhouse mirrors.
The white lines of back roads burn through his sleep.

Haunting shitkicker bars in flyspeck towns,
yellow skin means his liver's losing ground.
Snorting hits of speed off a whore's switchblade,
he pontificates to fellow wastrels:

'Drive with expired tags but stay off the grid.'
'Find weed so righteous that God would smoke it.'
'Pray gas pumps out here ain't dry as tombstones.'
'Hide out in a mirage if you have to.'

Life reaches an impasse that wears his name.
He hops a Union Pacific grainer
trundling through open plateaus of sandstone.
Brakemen stay, latch trains to a hard silence.