Saint George Boulevard

His wife used to cruise up and down
Here as a middle-school girl
On spring-break vacation from
Salt Lake. Her mother
Did the driving. She and her friends
Did the hollering, hoping for boys,
Cute ones, to holler back at them.

He drives it as a matter of chores,
Of employment. He's never seen
Anyone hollering out of windows,
Boy or girl. A few pedestrians
Shuffle along on the sidewalks.
It's an artery feeding the interstate
To the heart of town, a vein
Bleeding town back out to the world.

He remembers smaller boulevards
In remoter Montana, hard places
Where foolish teenagers drove
In hopelessly hopeful circles
On weekend nights, hooting
And whooping out of windows.
He remembers larger boulevards
Of greater cities glaring, congested.

Somewhere between the desperate
Boredom of towns too small
And dying on the prairies or
The crammed grandeur of the cities
Sinking stone markers into coasts,
He imagines what this desert strip
Must have been once existed,
Mothers driving girls crazy for boys.