Bandera Road Fantasy

Carol Coffee Reposa

September 26, 2021

“DIRT WORKS,”

The highway sign proclaimed

In big block letters,

And I started to imagine

Dusty legions

Toiling tirelessly in someone’s house

Like ants in their orderly colonies,

Millions of motes

Laboring over a carpet

Or table,

Dun-colored armies

Rank and file

Making inroads in upholstery

Deploying in drapes,

Patiently infiltrating

Cabinets and closets,

Drilling on window sills,

No quarter sought or given until

An equally enterprising mop

Or broom or sponge

Halts their maneuvers,

Briefly.

Author of five books of poetry, Carol Coffee Reposa has received five Pushcart Prize nominations, along with three Fulbright/Hays Fellowships for study in Russia, Peru, and Ecuador and Mexico. A member of the Texas Institute of Letters and of the Voices de la Luna editorial staff, she is the 2018 Texas Poet Laureate.