Casting up that urban glitter
    night dangles the city's lure.
Netted, aggregate strangers squirm,
    lonely curios pinned in
      the city's collection.
And see the signs of desertion
    on every rural road left
      half empty towns, vacant farms.

And at the end of one road,
    red clay.....a boarded store.
Stranded in the bay of weeds
    two fuel pumps, disconnected
      float like scrap metal, war torn.
Higher, a tall post, the sharp shade
    it makes on the asphalt....Its sign,

colors, once brisk, pulled by the heat
   black on white edged with crimson.
Like a doomed hog, the ruined sign
   squeals in the wind, swells in the sun.
In spray paint loops, blue words reads:
                       JESUS SAVES
almost covering its former
      impudent declaration of
              PURE GASOLINE