Dust to Dust: Milepost 466
By Nicole Antillon
Some places vanish slower in the rearview.
Window Rock burns behind me,
Sandstone flayed by wind and time,
Hemorrhaging light into an Arizona dusk.
I’ve been driving since dawn,
Left the revenants behind at eighty-nine miles an hour.
Even speed can not exorcise the demons of my past.
A lone structure slouches on the roadside,
Rusted pumps leaning like dried relics,
Disconnected like dying limbs.
The “O” in Open flickers.
A three-legged dog passes.
Nature goes silent,
Cold wind answers.
I keep moving.
Route 264 opens wide,
Blacktop slick and glistening,
Ozzy howls ALL ABOARD through the speakers.
Even darkness makes room for me.
I notice 3:33 a.m., The Devil’s hour. Halfway to hell
I shake it off and slice my hand through the wind.
I have been searching for something to make me feel…
Alive again?
A crackle of static disrupts,
A shape crosses,
Gravel spits.
The engine dies in a cloud of dust.
Something moves beyond my headlights,
Too slow to be danger,
Too hurt to be a threat.
I whistle.
It answers in my voice.
Not dog.
Not right.
Its eyes are all wrong.
I should have known,
You never whistle at night.
Skinwalkers always listen.
The desert eats my screams.
The stars refuse to blink.
The music returns to my car.
I return no more.
Nicole Antillon is a writer from Arizona who finds peace in writing poetry while navigating life as a single working mother. Her recent work has appeared in Middle West Press, Bainbridge Island Press: Poetics, Neon Origami and Half and One, as well as others.
