Like muddy rivulets, the tiny streams
of tapes unravel in the shaded curve
of freeway. Here a slingshot bungee seems
a snake, a creature flung by someone’s swerve,
synthetic roadkill cast among the shapes
of concrete fossils, hubcap shards and scree
from rusting cars or cases that held tapes
of hip-hop, rock&roll or R&B.

Beneath a pewter sky, upon a road
of pale concrete, around a stagnant pond
below a roaring overpass, we flow
with traffic off the bridge, due east beyond
the reach of natural shadows, down along
these rivulets of tape-recorded song.