WEBVTT

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This poem is called
"Little America."

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In Wyoming, just
west of Peru, there's

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a place called Little America.

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No one lives there, but there's
a Holiday Inn, an oil refinery,

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and the largest gas station
west of the Mississippi.

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In winter, snow-blind
truckers stop there

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for coffee and diesel.

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They might say a few
words about the weather

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or the price of oil, who
knows what they might say.

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But they'll snap down
quarters on the counter,

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stretch into their coats,
climb back into the high cabs,

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switch on the radio,
and ride that rhythm

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of guitars and lonely women into
the heavy heart of the country.

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On summer nights,
when the sky is

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a thicket of stars
and the wind is cool,

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jackrabbits are drawn to
the warmth of asphalt.

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They sit on their haunches and
listen to the strange rumbling

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of the stars.

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They stand transfixed by
beams of powerful light.

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When the sun comes up, the
traveler heading east or west

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past Little America
sees the highway

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littered with their torn
bodies, tufts of fur

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the color of dry
wheat ruffled by wind.

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And further on the mesa, past
barbed wire and the skeleton

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of a billboard, in the long
grass where antelopes sleep,

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a rusted yellow panel
truck stopped still

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against the clear
sky of Wyoming,

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where years ago someone
slammed the door

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and walked away with nothing
but his father's name,

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leaving this emblem of something
missing, this wind that

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lays down the grass.

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[APPLAUSE]

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