where a sign on the bridge welcomes all travelers,

runaways, and deserters to Tennessee.  The future

from here is Route. 40, extending from Memphis

to Virginia like a concrete tongue.  In the rear view

is our newly abandoned long-ago; the blue-collared

boroughs where poverty arrived like a fighter plane,

raining napalm over warehouses, factories,

and families.  Vacant homes stand behind mailboxes that smolder

on skeletal frames. Their tin mouths choked with unpaid debt:  Final notice.

Payment past due.  In the streets are job lines where hobbled figures

huddle around fire licked metal drums; their voices shrill

like the thin yelp of strangled animals.  We drive

on through Tennessee, stopping twice for gas;

our future that’s snaked out before us, not quite as bright

as those orange sparks that splatter the skyline.