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Texas is one big star heart pumping veined lines
Across abstract shape. Innumerable roads like the water
From a hose—mindless on a hot sidewalk. Times change
And fall into another hour gone—West Texas
But no people yet, just machines bobbing oil
As I fall asleep in the endless
Sea of yellow grass. The Great Plain, a simplicity
An open heart stretching southward toward the ocean. 
We’re getting closer to San Antonio 
And the trucks are getting bigger
With brush guards and lift kits. 
Gas is a dollar-fifty
Cheaper than California, and the bumper-stickers
Blend together in a collage that says, 
“I need you to know who I am.” We all drive on
In our ideological boxes, separated by painted lines
In the road. On the T.V at a rest stop
Portland protests and the cities are in arrest. 
Open carry and some say, “I’d like to see them try.” 
When guns have come a long way
But people remain the same—
The shapes of things are ideas. 
An AR-15, a certain idea, a shape 
Like a great day dream across a yellow void, a prairie 
Reduced to a prayer, a singularity
Of all roads returning
Outward to center.
We all carry on in our chest
Going every which way from the source
Like water from a hose
On a hot day, seemingly unconnected
Having all but dried up in the sun. 

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About the Author

Eli Coyle received his MA in English from California State University-Chico and is currently a MFA candidate at the University of Nevada-Reno. His poetry and prose have recently been published or are forthcoming in: Barely South Review, California Quarterly, Camas, Caustic Frolic, Hoxie Gorge Review, New York Quarterly, The Normal School, Permafrost Magazine, Soundings East, and The South Carolina Review among others.