They wore flowers in their hair,
and woke beneath an underpass.
It was time to leave.
Decades dismantled.
Traces left to fade
in unforgiving sun.
Driving North on 99,
broken white lines blur
to vanish in the rear-view mirror
like days --
Beyond the valley’s haze,
bark-beetles set the night alight,
while Louis serves his last supper,
and stall number 8 returns the quay.
Ghost riders of the golden bus
scramble to hop-off
as the night man
gets a error message.
John Walter Taylor
© All rights reserved
27 September 2026
