Sunset on Highway 441

Last night I dreamt I went to Andalusia again.

I saw myself in a rocking chair

on Flannery’s porch,

the old jinny braying in the red clay distance,

peacocks strutting their stuff, fanning feathers

with iridescent eyes, demanding attention

and giving it back,

knowing the sepia sky, an unremarkable shade of water

is on the verge of putting on a show that shames their tails,

even a top hat and cane couldn’t compete

with the kaleidoscope coming sure as a locomotive.

Those red Georgia skies, as Caroline Bonner used to say

when we lived across the hall from each other in staff quarters at Kanuga,

where I stopped her from stealing the Dodge

by loaning her my electric blue Volkswagen.

There’s no blaze like a sky fire: crimson, scarlet, and copper

melting into tangerines and traffic cones

while the gilded horizon swallows it all,

leaving a velvet canvas of diamonds

spilling deep into the ashes of Manderly every night.