don't pick up hitchhikers on OLD DESERT RD 9

A pair of hoodied children stalk a

stretch of OLD DESERT RD 9.

Their huge black eyes are lidless

and reflect an animal shine.

When headlights cast in beams

across that chilled flat land,

they slither from the darkness

and each stick out a hand.

Huddled on the shoulder

one crouches and one stands,

and head to hip they lay in wait

thumbing in demand.

The moon, risen high and hooked

between a trillion stars

gleams down on the beetle backs

of lonely rigs and cars.

Sputtering down DESERT 9

fleeing where they’ve been,

they drive alone and late and far—

this time, for real, again.

The drivers with their tired eyes

don’t know what's ahead.

The drivers with their tired eyes

don’t yet feel the dread.

Not every traveler sees them and

not all who see them stop.

A deep grooved fear of strangers

makes most stomachs drop.

When their high beams wash across

the stranded pair in black

they feel a sudden nasty pinch,

speed up, and don’t look back.

Of the few who edge their brakes

fewer still are snared

by those with covered wells for eyes

who rasp and sneer and stare.

The travelers, windows halfway down,

remember where they are

and leave the strangers in the sand

to glare after their car.

The hoodied children pass most

nights standing still as stone,

indifferent to the cold that makes

most travelers pine for home.

DESERT 9 is their home,

its hoodoos and plateaus

its gorges deep as years are long

its buttes and rocky windows.

Their bodies are the shadows

that sleep in canyon beds,

their weather beat insistence

a coyote’s howl to be fed.

With as many nights as stars to

watch trucks sputter by,

they practice begging in the dark

hey, can we get a ride?