Rest Stop/Marfa Lights

Randall Watson

Rest Stop/Marfa Lights

They told me in town this was the place to see them.

And it’s winter, so no one is here but me, and a dog,

A young dog, sifting the black plastic trash bag left

On top of the cement picnic table, someone’s laundry, it appears,

Because all he pulls out is a sock, a shirt, a pair

Of jeans with the back pockets torn, a sexy lavender bra

He swings frantically against the night, because it’s stuck, I suspect,

The lacey frill, most likely, snagged on one of his small sharp teeth,

And it will not soothe his hunger. Nothing much else is going on,

Unfortunately. On the hillside, where the lights, they say, will appear,

The lights perhaps of decapitated miners searching

For their missing heads, or of incredibly sophisticated aliens,

Large eyes emitting bright beams of phosphorescent nebulae,

Even, possibly, the eyes of the hedge fund manager

Who hosts the private opening of an Argentine painter,

His work a series of cardboard signs he’s purchased,

According to the catalogue’s preface, from the homeless,

His protest, he’s quoted as saying, against theatrical want and its

Recurrent performance. Anyway, on the hillside, nothing. It’s still dark, not even

A house-light, steady, unwavering, has pierced it. So I watch

For 30 minutes, an hour, and still nothing, and then, there, there, there—

A truck judging from its twin headlights, driven, judging by its

Inconstant weaving, by a couple of kids on their way

To a party. 2 hours later I’m still there, the night

Even darker, as is the dog, which by this time has loosed himself

Of the lingerie and is watching me carefully, growling occasionally,

To get my attention. At the third hour it’s getting harder

And still nothing, just the shifting of the stars, Orion

With his ornamented belt glittering fantastically, though

These, I think, are not the lights they speak of. By now

I am tired, and the dog, also tired, has curled up

By the trash bin, half in shadow, half in light, but when

I take my sandwich out, because it’s hungry work

Watching the dark for hours, he gets up, sniffing the air

And looking at me, the way dogs do, so I give him half, what

the hell, I think, he’s hungry too, which he swallows in

3 quick staggering gulps, and then, I’m pretty certain of this,

smiles at me, not once, but twice, before he angles away, pleased,

trotting off, his head turned back over his shoulder, still smiling,

his sharp small teeth like a beacon, a mysterious, marvelous,

otherworldy beacon that glows impossibly, weaving as it picks

up speed, moving with an incredible quickness across the dark, impenetrable dark, of the land.