H(WY)

          (for A. Sheehan and J. K. Johnson)

You could be anywhere, on this dusty

road winding from Ucross to Ulm,

hiking its scrub and shale, later

carving initials in the soft stone,

lying back to dream under sizable sky -

I'll be good, I'll live forever,

the bone-buoyant earth stretching off

to the Dakotas and Montana, a drained

Eocene ocean full of soil-swimmers

shoaled up in mid-life, mid-stroke.

You could be on the road to Delphi,

Deadwood, the Via Appia as it nears

Brundisium and the Adriatic, wherever

gravity's the cause of flat water.

It is the road to Ulm, turning then

for Clearmont, and Recluse.  Likewise,

all along in there, it's Wyoming.