My Backroad

by Arlen J. Levy

When I got desert sand in my toes

I kick it at the golden gate and the lost tribes come marching down the byway

and they toss me bolts of silk and egyptian cotton

I hold on and swing all the way through to Alcatraz

Mount Sinai rumbles under my feet and propels me up to heights

unreachable

diamond heights

Where the houses stand tall and their ugly paint never chips

Where I walk along billygoat hill caressing sprawling greenery

and the soldiers come marching down the freeway

and their feet stamp patterns in the desert sand

making my two realities collide and crumble

precarious

and I fall

onto molested mission streets

empty soda cans and cigarette butts nest in my hair

and the ice cream man rolls over my crooked ankle making the bells on his cart sing

a song that mingles with mariachi music wafting from a chinese doughnut shop

and the lost tribes come marching on through

with their leathery faces and their billowing robes and their leaden feet that stamp patterns in the desert sand

They lay me on their shoulders and I am passed down an aisle

of my heritage

down from the city streets

down through the Nile

When they take me home

I got desert sand in my shoes

So I take them off and I turn them over

and the lost tribes come tumbling across the floor.