Katy Freeway Station
Past a spot under a glistening canopy
cars off the Katy Freeway decades
apart space a station
fragments gas with fuel pumps
cards flash through readers
driving away hearts that I saw
as living forms are quickly gone
concrete oil drip stains
remain
The City grows measuring itself with time
where Euclidean shapes built
prefer 90 degree angles
and trendy pastels
flirt at structural tensors beyond-
those of destruction that first overtake nature’s
lush dreams crowding a prairie’s cactus
Buildings demolished like a timed storm-wave
reach renewal of sunset west
like an explorer conquering Katy
fuel hoses gushing nozzles
even as I grew older
Every young stranger’s well-gassed
fueled and flies
performing the same ritual
as the century retools
through glaring lights down the on-ramp
into darkness
A vacant field exists only in memory now
visited by a tornado
tearing apart steel roof anachronisms
from anything meaningful
besides mountainous dream-structures
sheltering a fossil fuel sanctuary
where passing strangers are recurrent thoughts
fueling lifetimes
never to return.
Garrison Gibson: books and blog 