Sidewinder Highway

3 Sidewinder Highway Nathan Brown The rattlesnake ofRoute 66 slithers and coils under, over, and all around I-40 in the Southwest. And in thebrightwhite scorch of an early summer, its venom raises blisters on thebacks of New Mexico and Arizona. Every hundred miles or so, Fd turnoff intoone of those towns likeTucumcari orWinslow just toput a footon the scaly back of this crazy road's history. At theSilverMoon Cafe inSanta Rosa, the food is fried or slathered in red hot chile.Or both. But I'm stillkickin'myself forpassing up gas at $3.87 a gallon in Kingman, the tail-end of Arizona. Because, by the time Ihit the 1180 ofNeedles, California, they were demanding $5.29. And theyknow you'll pay it, thereat the frontedge of theDevil's Playground and the Bristol Mountains ... outwhere theDevil ain't got no gas in the desert of his obsidian dreams . .. out there ... where he cooks up the recipes forall life's little disasters. Nathan Brown (www.brownlines.com) is a poet, musician, and photographer from Norman, Oklahoma. He holds a PhD in English and journalism from the University of Oklahoma and teaches there as well. Mostly he travels now, though, performing readings and concerts| aswell as speakingand leading workshops 1 o inhigh schools, universities, and community z organizations on creativity, creative writing, and 5 the need for readers to not give up on poetry. * ^ llT He has published five books, including Two ?= Tables Over (2008), which received the2009 Q Oklahoma Book Award for Poetry. j? CO Z < X z b o X

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