Coolidge

I drive through Coolidge
on the way to Tucson
but have only stopped there twice,
once to get something at Wal-mart,
I don't remember what,
and another time to see the Casa Grande Ruins,
a big adobe house built by the Indians.

In Coolidge you`ll see really tall cactus,
probably some men in cowboy hats,
a dollar store, a trailer park,
a bar called the Gallopin' Goose
and just south on the highway
there's Stinger Welding,
a big metal building
it might have been gray
and it might have been blue
and it's got an angry bee on the side
and I drive by all this stuff
a couple of times a year
eating sunflower seeds, feeling sleepy.

And this is the way we pass
through most of the towns
on the way to some other place:
knowing no one,
speaking briefly
or not at all
taking with us only a few unclear memories
of ten-thousand clear glances
and perhaps a trinket from some store
but we don't remember
what it was
or what we did with it
or where it is now.