State Road Sixty-Two

Twentynine Palms
two thousand eleven
a salty, old Marine
tried to tell me
the legend
of the Joshua Trees
 
he spat brown juice
from the shade into
the burning sand
muttered in his
midwest timbre:
 
the trees only grow
at the gates of heaven and hell,
and heaven is in Israel,
can I borrow like ten bucks?
 
looking back, though
California was heaven
 
and sometimes when
I’m drifting along
dusky Florida roads,
I imagine
the twisted silhouettes
of the Joshua Trees
extending their hands
in the place where
God could hear me