Texas State Rt. 410
by Alexander Etheridge
for Rick Brettell
It wasn’t me headed to
Pilot Knob, but the mountains already
everywhere,
in the shape they chose—faces
of snow,
red cedars.
Oblique mercies quicker than a syllable.
The volcano now always
coming and going
through an ear, down artery tracks
into clumped marrow—
its dense arc of fire like a backbone of stars.
Other earth
takes me.
Old houses hidden in the trees,
and parked trucks under
magnolia crowns—
Cabin up a long footpath,
(eye socket, hand. my hands.
I take the road,
it takes me)
rockfall and dust, immense clearings
coming, going . . .
My head — its window and door
open to the mountains
Alexander Etheridge has been developing his poems and translations since 1998. He is currently finishing his MA in creative writing and literature from The University of Texas at Dallas; and his poems have appeared in magazines like The Sojourn, The Parallax, The Cafe Review, The Dawntreader, and Abridged Magazine.
