goodbye, sweet hot phoenix

where a poetry bomb was brought

where a corridor was caffeinated

and a marriage was dissolved

I lived in the Valley of the Sun most of my life. I was able as a child to walk barefoot on asphalt in heat upwards of 110° F. In 1989 I and my then-spouse bought a house near 19th Avenue and Bethany Home Road, and about a year later our daughter was born at Community Hospital, less than a mile away. The marriage lasted 23 years, but was only intermittently happy.

hello, toledo, ohio

where my sweetheart has taken me on as cohabitant

whence we came after traveling in a 2023 kia soul

named celeste

At 11:52 PM the night of July 3rd, 2026 I left my apartment for the last time; the lease expired at midnight. I and my sweetheart spent our last night in Phoenix at the Hampton Inn & Suites. The morning of July 4 we left Phoenix; near sundown we found ourselves in downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico, looking for authentic New Mexican Mexican food. My sweetheart stepped on a sort of grating with small round cutouts, her flipflop caught an edge, and she pitched forward onto her face most of the impact was absorbed by her right knee and her nose near its bridge. We ended up ordering pizza delivery from Pizza 9, a chain based in New Mexico. It was delicious.

Next evening, after driving halfway through the Texas Panhandle, we stopped for the day at Amarillo and had appetizer takeout from the Red Robin across the street from our hotel. The pretzel bites were good but after a day of monotonous scenery of grass, wind farms, baled hay and occasional cows, we were too hypnotized to enjoy it much.

In Yukon, in metropolitan Oklahoma City, we had an unmemorable meal except for fried green beans while watching the U.S. soccer team fall to Belgium. The better team won, thank Goodness. That day we’d had nice cloudscapes and terrain that reminded my sweetheart Donna of her native Tennessee.

In Saint Robert, Missouri, near Lebanon, Donna and I had a DELICIOUS steak dinner at a place called Colton’s. We were a bit put off by the bad taxidermy of the trophy heads, though.

Next day was chaos and mishap. In Saint Louis sudden rain and an abrupt lane change lent themselves to a near collision, sending me into a narrow triangle of asphalt that was neither one lane nor the other, and only quick braking prevented a sideswipe. I did not shake, but was shaken.

Right past the stadium in Indianapolis the AI navigator announced a seventeen-minute slowdown, and gridlock prevailed. Just when it eased some came the news that a five-minute slowdown was imminent. It feels crawly to go from 70+ mph to less than a slow walk.

From then on, despite frequent lane closures and mowing and construction zones, driving was smooth. The “Welcome to Ohio” sign gave us a big boost. The “Highway 225/Toledo” turnoff was positively thrilling; and we rolled up our driveway before it was fully dark.

now we are in a town

that will become my town

as the end of one journey dovetails

into the beginning of another.