On an economy more dreary than our disposition,
Our Chevy sputtered along a desert highway in the night.
As we rode on towards the dim crossroads,
A slow, shadowy figure emerged into disfigured sight.
Scotty nudged my arm and I assumed
The angel on his shoulder was whispering in his ear
Because on any other night, as macabre as this
We would have just sped off
Leaving a trail of dirt in the air.
The friction crawled up into skin as I mashed the brake,
The Chevy wheels screeching a dusty demise.
The man showed his face, carrying a heavy plastic sack,
A shark smile and shaky praying mantis eyes.
Scotty and I listened to the man ramble about
Extraterrestrials and aliens and UFO's.
He continued on with space conspiracies,
Hidden nuclear warheads and animal sex shows.
The angel on Scotty's shoulder frowned
And I wanted to twist the wheel and pull to the roadside.
But I kept on going on down down down,
Down down down as the road got more and more wide.
The dawn was nearing to the day
And the sky was beginning to turn this dim steel blue.
He pointed out that the next crossroads
Was where he was due.
When we got there and our fingers trembling,
He got out of the car, not a word being said,
And his sack opened up
And out fell a bloody human head.
'A memento, ' he said with a grin.
And as we watched him walk down the road
With eyes undone,
A sparkle-supernova beamed down from the clouds
And just like that,
He was gone.
K. Jared Hosein
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/strange-the-hitchhiker-at-the-crossroads/
