South-Valley

Bill McKenzie's double-great grandfather
told migrants to take this twisted way
to get from Trout to Orchard, and that made
a dirt road. One section is a gravel bed

but the rest is good only when it's frozen
rock hard, most of the time it's sucking mud,
or alkali powder that hangs in the August air.
The county spread the gravel up and down

the twisted to make it 'all-weather', which fixed
the sucking, but not the alkali dust.
The state paved the last 40 miles
when they tied in highway ninety-five,

then they put the new highway up north
where the pronghorn herd-up for migration,
the new strips of pavement and wire fence
cut the valley in half. Most people

on the twisted made a wrong turn,
would be happy with a flat spot to park
and an outhouse. The wrong-turns hear
engine noises, smells like burning hair,

they're too uneasy to think what it was like
for wagon drivers walking beside the smell
of hot horse, watching lean thighs
roll and sway, eating the dust.

Up ahead, in the cool between junipers,
McKenzie's girls are waiting.