I wait for you

When the black leather seats of the diner

Are no longer plush

And stuffing oozes

Like mashed potatoes

From broken stitching

Cracked

Faded

Like the rearview

I watch for you in

Walking

Through fields of blooming clover

Thumb out

Waiting

For the aged silver bus

Painted in flowers

To ride on by

And me

In beads and braids

Hanging out the window

Mellow and warm

Swaying

To old freedom songs

Lost

Now

In the pounding rhythm of a country

So far removed

From all that is holy

It has forgotten

The blood

The magic

The sex

Spilled and leaked

On the old highways

That forged America

And pumped life

Into withered veins

Pain

And agony

Torture

In restriction

The loss

Of what made us gods

Haunting

The American nights

Where Jazz is dead

And blues are the swirling neon

Of too many bars

All pressed together

In tiny rows

Huddled

Pretending there nothing wrong

With a place

That says come in empty

And leave alone.