Looking For Ghost Towns<\/strong><\/p>\n 1. Morning in Colville National Forest<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Jon sleeps like a dead man<\/p>\n in the bed of the truck.<\/p>\n My fingers hurt in the cold.<\/p>\n The fog rolls in around the bend.<\/p>\n The sun, a pale dot<\/p>\n behind gray clouds.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Off the road, the ground is soft, The sound of it rushes under<\/p>\n the street, a foot wide<\/p>\n and an inch and a half deep–<\/p>\n \u00adI think to wash my face in it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The fog touches the stump<\/p>\n of a pine that’s been cut<\/p>\n smooth like a table<\/p>\n and hauled away.<\/p>\n A bluejay has begun squawking.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n There’s patience to be had<\/p>\n watching the fog roll in around<\/p>\n the trees; in how the cars pass<\/p>\n them by the side of the road.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Snow plow, you come down<\/p>\n the mountain like a violent rain.<\/p>\n I kick the truck to get Jon up<\/p>\n so we can get back on the road again.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 2. Bodie<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n We drove all morning<\/p>\n before we reached the valley–<\/p>\n \u00adlong and narrow–pointing north.<\/p>\n The clouds let up<\/p>\n when we crossed Sherman Pass.<\/p>\n The sun felt good<\/p>\n through the window.<\/p>\n A few houses separated<\/p>\n by pastures were stitched<\/p>\n together with fences.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We passed the town once<\/p>\n and turned around. We drove<\/p>\n all morning to find those four gray<\/p>\n houses behind rusted barbed wire,<\/p>\n lodged into waist high grass.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We found beer bottles<\/p>\n thrown out back,<\/p>\n the boards sagged and<\/p>\n creaked under our feet,<\/p>\n paper and plaster<\/p>\n cluttered the floor.<\/p>\n The windows of Bodie<\/p>\n were shattered–the culprits<\/p>\n lay at the back of the room.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A German Shepherd<\/p>\n had come here to die–<\/p>\n \u00adeither shot by someone<\/p>\n or hit by a car. His empty skin<\/p>\n lay in a bedroom. Jon<\/p>\n looked at me before saying,<\/p>\n “Bodie’s the name of my dog.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 3. Grand Coulee<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Outside of Omak there’s a sign:<\/p>\n Hitchhiking Permitted–<\/p>\n \u00adLimited Distance.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Laughing, we wondered<\/p>\n what was the distance.<\/p>\n There never was another sign.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Two hours later,<\/p>\n across the Reservation,<\/p>\n we reached the tall curtain of air<\/p>\n that separated the brown<\/p>\n from the green lawns, the brown<\/p>\n from the white curbs.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We spat out the window,<\/p>\n spat on the dam, ate<\/p>\n cheese sandwiches and threw<\/p>\n the crusts to the birds.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Daryl Muranaka<\/strong> was born in Los Angeles, California and split his childhood between there and Hawaii. \u00a0He lived in Spokane, Washington where he earned an MFA from Eastern Washington University. \u00a0From there, he traveled west to Japan then east to Boston, Massachusetts where he lives with his wife and daughter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Looking For Ghost Towns 1. Morning in Colville National Forest Jon sleeps like a dead man in the bed of the truck. My fingers hurt in the cold. The fog rolls in around the bend. The sun, a pale dot behind gray clouds. Off the road, the ground is soft, and a creek […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3986"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3989,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3986\/revisions\/3989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nand a creek runs down the slope.<\/p>\n