Driving Through Sinton, Texas

Driving through Sinton, Texas
with my parents---
the cotton town

where Ronnie Burk
would be born later,
the small distance

between Sinton and Taft
filled with rows
and rows of cotton.

The railroad railing
parallel with
the asphalt highway,

the cotton gin
and cotton warehouses
were

the metropolis of Taft,
tin skyscrapers
to a child.

And now machines
pick the cotton,
making the bales

as big as the RVs
that head to the beaches
of Corpus Christi---

Taft,
nothing but a gas stop
or a restroom break.