The Road to Culpeper

A torn flag hangs
From the balcony of a two-story
Shack; fields of corn give way

To huge piles of trees, abandoned
Bulldozers. The prison looks
Magnificently calm.

At nightfall my heart goes
With the Crescent trundling souls
South to New Orleans.

My breath goes with
The deer filling my windshield.
We live live live live

What greater news than survival
On this road or any road
Taking each of us past

A few small graveyards
The smell of fertilizer
The shriek of a train.

--Hilary Holladay

Rt. 615 toward Culpeper