On I-80 West
there is life here…
if you look hard / drink hard
an intrinsic brightness of being
to the gas-station dreamers
going over the sun-bleached ground
mad fast / bleary on the flat
there is beauty here…
past the bitterbrush, shade-less
scorched clear / piss plastic / bottles
singed by the primal sheen
tossed to the shoulders
of the true west
there is everything here…
every exit taken in the night
and every promise hidden
within a yield
Elisa Carlsen (@iamrabbitnow) is a queer poet. Their writing has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Scapegoat Review, Trumpeter, Cirque, Anti-Heroin Chic, Brushfire, and elsewhere. Nominated for The Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, Elisa is the author of Cormorant, a poetry collection addressing the human dimensions of salmon recovery in Oregon.
