Roger Jones
 

Filling stations, cafes, fruit stands, or roadside stops, miles apart, hulk along breezy I-10. Abandoned, ramshackled, collapsing, burned to the ground. No one bothers to tear them down or clear them away. Two decades we've been passing, to and from visits to family. One day our tire goes flat; we pull to a stop along the shoulder.

weeds thrust
through flattened signs --
try some of our . . .

Roger Jones teaches English at Texas State University, and has published in various places. His second book, "Are We There Yet," is being published this coming fall by the Texas Review Press.

Copyright 2006: Simply Haiku