What My Friend Says

I can’t remember from where we drive
except of what my friend says.
But we head north and a little west
up the sun-beat, barren valley.

We will pull into town when it is dark
and see our way home by street light.
We will sit on the porch, numb in the air,
and I will listen to him talk
of summer that passes.

The sun bleeds into haze
that obscures western mountains.
Clouds burst up into eastern sky,

Telephone wires cross their vibrancy
and walk, pole by pole,
into forgotten, brown foothills.