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Writer's pictureMatt Smythe

WELCOME TO TEXAS

Updated: Jul 9, 2020



juxtaposed with an unlikely six hour jazz session on a straining static and likely below-the-radar bible-belt FM station             and the featureless August midnight blacktop and black backdrop beyond my headlights on route 30 outside of Jonesborough          it’s a lonely straight-through stretch from Little Rock to the Texas border just southwest of Hope

even lonely (maybe because of) the jazz stuck in some recess                 names escape me             quiet incessant soft saxbasspianocornettrumpetsnare lowing               their mellow walk in my mind’s corner             flutter flow flight figure follow satisfied to play and wait             sit-in and play to the empty bar save for the one man in the suit and loose tie           eyes closed and harmonizing with his thin rocks glass and the sad woman in the midnight blue strapless             slow turn and sway and wish             heels on the empty dance floor

the jazz stuck as most all things do           and the road kept on             sunrise caught me somewhere between Hope and the border             I read the sign in its lone star largess                jazz and dawn aching through

the crazy riff of sage and red-eyed 80 miles per hour


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