Lincoln Boulevard

You are the north and south of us, 

the missionary's road, before colonized by cars,

old sins paved over for new ones,

Ugly as a mirror image, 

beautiful as a Rauschenberg collage.

Lincoln, the emancipated street conceived in liberty 

and dedicated to vehicles.

Showrooms, Sig Alerts and junkyards,

Motors are revved and the yogurt is frozen.

Quick Lube, fast food, strip malls are naked,

palmists, paychecks cashed and graffiti.

This is Americana where nobody walks. 

Is that you, Walt Whitman listening hard 

for bumper stickers singing? 

O Captain, my Captain, turn away; 

sprigs of lilac no longer bloom. 

We’ve emptied the wetlands in your name 

and filled the open road with bumpers of chrome. 

Lincoln, you are a gasoline alley 

and your thick air is exhausted,

part funeral procession. part parade.

Yet, some still lean and loaf at their ease. 

Surfers and surgeons mingle at the Cock & Bull saloon. 

A Suit stops a street vendor for a bouquet of roses. 

The Uber driver keeps a screenplay under his seat.

(Construction ahead- one lane)

Where the created equal eat 

sushi and salsa, 

pad thai and pastrami. 

Here is our body electric, 

neon diners and 

all-night laundromats, 

Pollock’s drip and 

Ginsburg’s Howl, 

clear as a dusted frappuccino.

We're here at LAX, 

to disappear

into thin air.

We've made good time 

on our way to elsewhere.