Inspired...

Asheville, NC is beautiful, and so is the Asheville Poetry Review. A gem:

Don't Wake the I-98
-Anna Connors

We didn't know the highway was closed.
Dark clouds' bruised underbellies
clog the sky.

Road colors radiate
through their dusting of ash,
blak-eyed susan yellow
in unsung morning.

Our car,
the only moving shape.

We find the occasional image
hold it,
an impossible breath.

A-frame churches,
steeples pierce the air.

Crushed animals
like moccasins
at this speed
their lovely, beaded bodies

incarnadine
and black
in the rearview mirror,

carrying us
one mile marker to another
until all signs say
go home.

You'll wake
the enthroned bulldozers,
tall and curved
like pitcher plants.

You'll wake
the broken billboards
that plead redemption,

the abandoned shopping carts
that couldn't possibly
be out this far,

directing us toward home.