I'm a peacock on a road

it's taken a while, but the good memories are coming on

all that cement, and then the stone, scorpions poisoned springs

there were words that were pictures of another tongue

i think of the smiling faces among the barbed warnings

a subset of the females was eager to bring you in

they could announce their thirst with bright scarves whereas the men

were so undercover you might mistake them for border patrol guys

working an angle down at the same bar as the wandering eyes

off the same parking lot as the hooptie-tel and the vittle grill 

you can get your mom across or get off with your cousin's boss

there's dim lights and cold drinks like any dive in the heat sink

a private betting parlor more than a moment to think for a wayside crawler

there's a highway runs through

but it cuts us in two

there's a bridge, but it's costly to use

i'm a peacock on a road

you're the last horned toad

in a place that only we knew

by Silvia