Livestock

Train yards scream with droning sounds
that wash over everything
and common coupes speed by not
noticing the stop signs.
The wire from the radio to the iPod classic
I have pirated my entire life’s soundtrack
onto doesn’t sync up right and is static
when I’m driving over concrete gaps
that stop me where I’m at.
I look around and all I see is dead grass,
or the dying blades still barely hanging
in there, until a cow shows up
and bites the patches worth it.
Subpar detergent chokes the colors
from my polo shirts I wear to work
and find myself caught up in like a fly
caught on a plastic strip with glue smeared
over all of it.
I wait there for the tow truck by the barbed
wire divider between the livestock and the real
world where the only thing that kills us
is our loneliness, or maybe just the opposite.
It gets darker by the minute as the magic hour
takes over the skyline and the phone poles
cast their shadows just like crosses
worn by those taking communion.
You would think a name like that would
mean there’s something out there talking back,
but with those trains off in the background
there is no noise that could make any kind
of difference. When help arrives I somehow
only see the headlights.