The man with half a face
stares out at the steep hills
a ghost town jewelled with the lights of shanties
tin trailers perched on limestone outcrops
listening to droning swamp coolers
as the hospital sleeps
a last refuge of the poor, the illegal
and the dispossessed
lost inside the faint, silvery trills of Mexican trumpets
that float across the vast, dark, desert emptiness
like spectres that frequent the night
Steering his Cadillac like a hastily rolled joint
into a concrete ditch
crash-landing on farmhouse steps
assuring his own destruction -
(arm, leg, ribs, vertebrae, lungs and spleen
jaw reconstructed with wire and chewing gum)
joints grinding
stealing extra pillows
gazes with watery eyes from his bed by the window
half obscured by orange fallout
dump trucks with wheels like hot tubs
shifting dirt and slag, licking up plumes of dust
all day long, the screech and rattle
machinery rising from old smelter
forming mountains, curved and sloped
impossibly high, like giant sand dunes
and beyond, strip mines
gargantuan whirlpools
sucking down into the earth
like an ever-shifting puzzle
questions, questions, always questions –
why
don't I remember dying?
...and yet, I am dead
Questions
©crisstiena
Adding your comment:
Magnificent, of course, considering the source. 
Egad, ya nearly made me rhyme. 
Good luck in the contest, my dear Friend. 
