Prayers (Cambio Sentido) 
by Cliff Lynn

on this packed-earth oklahoma highway
exactly halfway between
my estranged wife’s house
and somewhere else

is there Anyone
Anyone at all to accept my prayers?  

it’s been quite a life so far
it has been

exactly halfway between
advising fast-attack submarine skippers
where to place their whispering blue
machines to achieve optimum kill radius

and lone avenging banjo-ditch drinking
under a pissing black northern japan sky

exactly halfway between
someone else’s mother’s bosom
and places I had no business being

exactly halfway between
dense as a box of rocks, and a hard case

gripping the wheel now
like it’s an angry tethered beast

cornpone road signs whip like tears
through my field of vision

do not drive into smoke
hitchhikers may be escaping convicts

I recall a road sign in spain
to reverse direction on the highway

cambio sentido
change of heart,

just exactly halfway between
missing the spring in the step of stacie’s voice
and wondering why it wasn’t enough to hold me

and my prayers have surely been answered
because this has been,
and so is, my life

cambio sentido.