He traced his way “zipper-like” across the dry desert landscape
leather boots pressing
the stench of gasoline into the heat of the afternoon.
His tiny toy truck
kicking up plumes of dust and then spinning them back into the thick air of the cab.
He couldn’t remember where it went wrong,
but then again he had never known it to be right.

That night he saw her at the end of the bar
nursing her one too many whiskey sours,
nursing her one too many heartaches,
licking her wounds so to speak.
He approached her friend at first.
Her heavy make-up and short skirt
made her look ripe and easy.

As he drove through jagged cactus
and the baking scorch of sun,
he could scarcely remember a time when she was happy.
It wasn’t the time she stood weeping on the crispy front lawn
holding baby Jake in her arms,
the front of her breasts wet with sweat,
or even the hot mosquito picnics in the backyard
where she twittered about
with red crusted ketchup spattered paper plates.
“Forget it,” he thought.
He never cared to think about much,
Let alone to think about Deb.
She had done him wrong for the last time.

At some point he grew tired
and decided to pull over.
It wasn’t anywhere in particular;
it wasn’t even somewhere.
He was a man who was used to going nowhere.
Pops always told him that was where he was going to go,
so in fact,
there he went.
The reflection of Pops struck him for a moment
but then sizzled away
fast as a spot of spit on a blistering skillet.
He strolled about,
five or so paces,
flicked his lit fag into a rocky mound of debris
and paused for a breath,
maybe a thought,
no,
a breath.
Peering down into the bottom of a dry creek bed
he noticed a line of starched white steer skulls.
“There!” he thought.
That’s where he would put her.