great poetry reading day

In honor of Great Poetry Reading Day, here's the first (and so far only) prose poem I've written. { Also, this one's for Amy, the main reason we made it from Nashville to Santa Barbara in four and a half days, even with all our stops. That girl drives even faster than me. :-) }



8 Hours in Abilene
by Catherine M Braun

We limped into town three hours older than when we started, mouths Texas dry, skin drowning. The A/C gave up the ghost 630 miles ago, while we were looking for the King in the Jungle Room. Hell would be a welcome reprieve after Arkansas without recycled air. We made do with Dallas. 13 hours out of Nashville, that first night we crashed and I hoped whatever was wrong would work itself out with a 12-hour rest.

Hope may spring eternal, but sometimes it’s smothered, stifled, soaked, and heat-stroked. That second day we thanked God for the Texaco man who knew a place we could go. The dealership had a waiting room and a shuttle. We chose the shuttle – and the mall. Things always look better after pizza and bookstore browsing (my version of retail therapy). Until they look worse. And I didn’t have that kind of money.

Back at the dealership a deal made, a compromise. Forget the A/C, but fix the oil leaks and the dodgy camshaft. Tomorrow we’ll do Carlsbad in two hours, with the shin-splints to remind us. Tomorrow we’ll have lunch with aliens, be the first visitors from Santa Barbara at the International UFO Museum and Research Center – at least this month. (And I’m no longer from Nashville.) Today we haunt two leather couches and a cow-hide rug.

I had hoped to sleep in El Paso the second night. We only made it to Pecos.