Before noon, the Lyman Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
floods its congregation into the streets,
but the holiness evaporates in half an hour.
On hollow flats, the city acres stretch along
Interstate 80, Wyoming Highway 30,
removed from Bighorn and the buttes
and away from Green River and green Idaho.
Here, the Shoshone came for piñon harvest
in late summer but now New Americans
come for cheap real estate—a solace
for isolated families and broken bachelors.
These men talk of the past and Boise
where they could find an honest strip club.
They carry knives to carve their vocabulary
into diner tables and stab a glory hole into the toilet stall.
Though, none have courage enough to fuck a stranger
as they fester in work then liquored exhaustion.
Elsewhere, they would manifest crime and perversion,
but this town gives no opportunity for either.
I accelerated a 16-foot Penske back to the interstate
with blended bourbon and gasoline,
leaving Lyman, its Christians,
and the grime of isolation.