North San Juan

There’s no South or West or East San Juan, only North San Juan, alone with its

name, cut in half by a highway. Once miners loved it, then Hippies, now

no one special. It’s a place boozers who like to stop at every place stop. Its

graveyard is enormous, with regal vestiges—tall tombstones, wealthy oaks. In

summer-swelter, flies stick to diesel oil. Sloppy screened-doors flop

in breezes. Sadness seems to soak into the town, sink into deep, sealed tunnels.

If you go through there in Winter, don’t speed up too much because outside of town there’s a bad curve

where ice holds all day, and you could end up almost dead just east of North San Juan.