I met a traveler from a far-off place
Who said: By some blue highway on the plains
A plaster giant stands with vacant face,
While crows roost in his rotting-out remains.
His ill-proportioned form bespeaks no skill,
Nor too the toothy smile that lights his mien;
A tattered sign reads "Ozzie's Bar & Grill --
The Best Prime Rib from Here to Abilene!"
A steakhouse long defunct, its mourners few;
The parking lot now stitched with seams of weeds
Where, squinting eastward, one may roughly view
The interstate: A stream of glinting beads
Of chrome and windshields; here, a break of trees;
An exit ramp; a floodlit Mickey D's.
Brendan Beary