Tonight's Poet Corner: Needle Road

Needle Road
by Belinda Roddie

There's a needle road I take back home,
slick and silver, next to the lasso lane,
the coil of asphalt slapping automobile hooves
as they trot away from a long commute.
On the tip, a taquería smells of carnitas
and cayenne pepper, the hot chocolate spicy,
the mariachi band trembling in their braided charro
tapestries, breathing in the cold autumn
with plucked strings and hot air in horns
elevated to the cloudy heavens. When the tires
on my truck hit the curb just right, it is almost
as if I am the thread in the eye, a string looped
around the chromed tesserae of the mosaic
neighborhood - an idolized mesh
of fabric and stone, woven and sewn
to create a flow, a continual line
that drapes over the lip of the needle road
and doesn't even end around the simple, stabbing point.