Then came ’99: the meridian year that meant divide,
meant water flowing one way suddenly shifted to the other.
Soon the southern plains became the failsafe place we settled.
And the years metronomed between home and Oklahoma
until home became the metronome itself: I-40’s god-arm length of blacktop
hauling us back and forth from the middle out and from the out back in,
coming and going like failing pilgrims, passing through the dark palm
that widens out into the brick and blues of central Memphis:
a faintly imagined place where the Mississippi was made real—
ten times over in ten years. Let’s call it luck, and love,
and a new Oklahoma job. Hell, it’s all mixed up now.