81  Invades with highway sounds

Crushes the grind of crickets;

opossum  roams the

Porch unaffected,

searching for errant Cheetos

Sniffing dirty sneakers.

Nearby, the filth of

empty 12-packs and peed-in plastic bottles

thrown out from car windows.

A half-empty unzipped suitcase covered in moss

A deer skull. An empty fifth of Jim Beam home to a slug.

Shell casings. The remnants of a sleeping bag

Now home to earwigs.

What was a campsite.

A 300 pound black bear bolts up the ravine-

readily visible in the empty trees.

Thirty years ago a plane crashed into this mountain,

Supposedly still there.

The body was pulled out. No skeleton

To join the rest of this graveyard.

It’s near the microwave tower

If you can make it that far.

Old pottery, a tomahawk,

In the dry river

That once quenched the soldier’s thirst

And washed wounds,

Now entombed in layers of stone.