This next one is called Jo Jo's Fireworks--
Next Exit.
Past the turpentine camps, brilliant green lamps
held by woozy militiamen.
The car with a nose of its own, with headlight eyes,
sniffs through the mountain fog, heart palpitating, belly hungry
for gasoline pancakes.
Ghettos rave in their sleep, butchering alto solos,
harvesting white snakes.
The car ever more threadbare, feels
lost on Chevrolet Avenue, a victim of the taxi wars.
Salamanders glow like tiny cutlets,
and each inn is in secret a detention barracks.
Each exit an entrance to underground cuniculi,
concatenation of clandestine suburbs
from which there is no escape until dawn
when bellboys are young.