Searcy at Midnight

I am afraid of becoming like this place
too linear, described by a single street
parallel selling of bibles and bedroom lace
leaving garbage to swelter in the highway’s heat

where the roadkill smears meet.
And the dust-grass and dogwood trees wallow
in their stench, in the redneck beats
who seed the air with fumes and make me swallow

like a pill from an unmarked bottle.
But I’m still here, walking on Race
that all the alleys lead to in a throttle
the thrash of escape, the breakneck pace.

I am afraid of becoming like this place
where black weeds sprout stone-like at asphalt edges,
where white and orange neon blots my face
in the shadows of the warehouse ledges.

I kick stones, I cut through hedges
looking for things I used to know
before these eyesores, before I had to adjust
and settle for this solitary row.