BY: Robert Beveridge

The needle at seventy.
The plains states pass,
one endless road and miles
of crops. Now and again,
corn becomes barley.

You, next to me.
The heat was too much;
you cropped your hair, left it
at the last rest stop
hundreds of miles ago.
Your t-shirt lies
on the cooler.
Seat half-reclined
window topless
seventy-mile-an-hour wind
dries sweat before it forms.