Road Soda: Collected Travel Poems
A.A Zatarian
Zine #51—March 2026
Road Soda is a collection of poems from A.A's various chapbooks that she wrote while traveling the US for most of the last twenty years.
From “Calling Things by the Wrong Name”
([out of print] written 2007-2017)
[Portland]
Skip town with me,
the shoulder wrapped in
spider’s webs
stuck to my kisses.
‘Skip town with me.’
Leave me
smelling of cigarettes.
Stuck at overlooks,
straining to see turnstiles.
Sang stories
with air flowing through lips
like it was compressed
through brake lines. We roll
cigarettes with fingers
tinged like the ceilings of
so many tunnels.
[Roseville]
How it has begun to engrain
itself in me is comforting.
Understand these filthy hands.
Nicotine stained nails reflecting
the grass. Each dry blade and
stalk catch the sun. They drink
it in. Only for it to mean
ruination. At the touch of a
tossed match flames would ignite
and burn brilliantly quick.
[SLC→ Bakersfield]
In the desert
the wind is seeding the clouds
with ground bones of roadkill
tumbleweeds. Only to drop snow.
To run down vertical
creek beds to make
our pores prick
and knees turn blue.
We dip in.
Nauseous yellow peat bogs
spilled and all dried up amongst
cactuses. Nothing left but bleached
bones of goats
and seven-forty-sevens.
While steel ghosts encroach
on trees defending themselves
with malnutrition and steep footing.
Ghouls putting the same wind to work,
chopping its strides with rotation.
[Hwy 1 Southbound]
Semi-trucks in this town
have voices of trains
that take
three and a half miles
to stop.
I wish the coyotes weren’t so boisterous
right now. I hope I am in the right meadow.
We are always outsiders in this town.
The stars made my feet
fall dumb last night. I remembered
what it is I love.
Things that were
concrete before concrete.
Knowledge that I am not above
sneak attacks from the back
by big cats.
[Shelter Cove]
Walking tops of rocks
in unorthodox patterns.
So much to take in.
Pores wanting brackish
water in new cuts
to heal them before
they were made.
Keeping boot’s toes
in tightly churned tidal
puddles so cells don’t forget
the work of osmosis. Dry dirt
ploughs of hills furrow
the ocean. Chest puffed
singing triumph
of gull’s first fish.
Hills to be undercut.
Turned to many
subtle shades of grey tumbling
talking towards the sea.
[San Francisco]
Sewing prick stitches
with rusty needles
I used to use
when I wore sturdier clothing
and more practical shoes.
Wringing vinegar out
of sheets after two
nights rough sleep.
[Oro Valley]
Wide ranging
wolflike women.
All hungry in eyes,
shown the moon.
Star shot
shone cerulean.
So we try to deny
the biology of being
spawned a pack animal.
Since before the dawn
of time. When we needed
numbers to negate
the night.
[I-10 Eastbound]
Shrugging kisses off shoulders.
Negativity bias, why all my
favorite shirts have twisted
seams and unfinished hems.
Hole where pant’s button wore
through, and popped off in
a gas station parking lot
somewhere in West Texas. Holidays
spent smoking in motel rooms
where roaches die on doorsteps.
Trimming split ends over sinks
before sinking into bed. Not
noticing the closure is gone
until undressing in front of
mirrors.
[Louisiana]
Clandestine coitus
and the inability to be
kept. Except a secret
under sheets of night.
At hours when the veil is thinnest.
Looking at me through gauzy filters.
Blurry enough, with bleary eyes
all wanting sleep.
Locks laden with light
when the sun comes up.
Then gone like the Milky Way
over a cityscape.
From “Learning Dressage on a Black Mule” (2022)
[North Dakota]
In the America
you can leave
your car running
as you run into Love’s.
Always the same, running.
Birds building nests
of cigarette cellophane.
Wriggling in the wind.
Like words, becoming scarce.
The raccoon got laid out
like Jesus on the way to LaCrosse
on the side of the road. Days
feeling like fall on the West
Coast. Summer up here.
Ground blooming buds
blood red strewn beside
the highway. Lost sense
of what it is to see
a thousand tiny lives
dashed against
the windshield.
[I-94 Westbound]
Abstract
forms receding.
Unadjusted eyes
squinting
against a time change.
Accounting
for mistakes.
Lost hours
to a slower pace.
Rapid card shuffle
stuffed into the back
pocket of a duffel bag.
A two of hearts,
The Hanged Man,
the corner ripped
off a dollar bill,
a 10 spot found
on the ground.
From “Bad Dog Went” (2023)
[Cochise County]
Dog caught
on a hawk
kill all
spilled
with the
Fall's leaves.
Picked a
careful way
up a red
rock path.
Found
something
from the past
changed and
inhabited
by others.
[Pima County]
Dust blowing.
A smoking cigarette.
Buying a used car.
A swarm of flies.
Staying in the
same numbness.
[Sonoran Desert]
A mote of shine shimmers
from the sugar of a fallen
fruit. Pulled goat heads
from a black dog’s foot.
Stopped to peel dates.
Sucked sweet seeds. Too
small to be much meat.
Saccharine all the same.
Sunburnt through the
sapphire winter sky.
[Southern AZ]
Talked to a friend about being on the road today.
We had been estranged,
so the stories were new to me.
A stranger made out of someone known
for almost half your life.
Knowing someone exists isn’t
the same as knowing them.
Like a city you passed through one time.
You know you’ve stopped in it.
To eat, or sleep, at least
to get some water. But never knew
the guy at the corner store's name.
People, like cities can only be known
as well as they’ll allow you.
It’s been a long time since
a picked lock, pried open
moldy old door to slip through
broken open windows where
the glass has been knocked
all clear from the frame,
in order to see the world
from a discarded angle.
The math on the miles
that have been crossed and recrossed.
Retracing steps where a toe was stubbed
bloodied open on the weather stripping
of a single-wide in the trailer park
next to a train yard, after drinking
too many Milwaukie’s Best Ice.
Stomach full of Wal-Mart steaks,
the only meat in a week.
Overly cautious, the only one
to get in my own way. Avoidant,
disinterested. Not much of a story
to swap. Spinning up a knotted mess
with my mouth comparing to the yarn
some spin. Fine silk that weaves easily
onto the loom holding the tapestry
of their personal mythology.
The overarching themes washed
over me like water. Stuck in
the minutia of moments. Pinned down,
the stream rushing up my nose.
Memories became small vignettes.
Ants eating the lost corner of a wild berry
toaster pastry as she vacuumed the car.
A rainbow splatter of soapy paint by the sink
in the bathroom of a public park.
Remembering where, but not when or why.
Saw someone I hadn’t seen in seven years,
though I could say I’ve known him over a decade.
Brought up and down like narrow desert roads.
Dipping down to risk flash flood,
only to be brought back to high ground
just as quickly. Like grief, monsoons
washed over us. Recognized its heaviness.
Like a wall of saltless tears. Rolling down
the windows to enjoy the cool fragrant desert
air after rain passed. The creosote
of the bushes and the railroad tracks
milling with petrichor. Pointed out the ramp
once used to load cattle into train cars.
Where there was a stagecoach stop.
The golf course used to be a ranch.
Seeing the ghost of a place
as someone describes the specter.
Bones poking from the threadbare
fabric of awnings whose shade
has only been enjoyed by snakes
long enough for the desert to take back
the gravel lots surrounding.
This year’s rain leaving the desert
with a thick mat of unruly grass.
Already turning from green to brown.
The unkempt blonde hair of a giant.
To be a stranger everywhere while knowing
everywhere better than you would
if it were the only place you had
ever known. Telling someone else’s story.
Writing in the margins of their pages.
From Fall Risk (2024)
Startling. [New Orleans]
Black cat too shy to eat
the food left out for it.
A mood shift,
swing skittish.
A flushing at the past.
Things that pop and snap.
A two-stroke engine.
A nine millimeter.
The temporary small
explosion of a sparkler.
A clover when picked.
A mortar shell crackling,
combustible bouquet,
incandescent flowers.
Break. [Asheville]
The facsimile of a cowboy
staggered out of the bar.
The entire town stunk
of bark chips and newly
milled lumber. Cut a path
through the yard of a Baptist church.
Unable to gather thoughts,
instead gathering belongings.
Enjoy being alone in a crowded room,
staring at the checker board floor.
The past called on the telephone.
Static, over a tape, interference.
Warp and slow of a dying battery.
Too romantic to see. Pretending not to
people watch. Wishing every bar
was a Honky Tonk.
Summer. [East Tennessee]
Dragonfly. Iridescent,
shining teal. Wings
black lace. Dancing.
Pollens on the wind,
Fluffed and floating.
Tick dug into bikini line.
Mild like radishes
when the heat doesn’t
get to them. Moist
and swollen. Refreshing,
bright, clean.
A world of voyeurs.
The beetles starting to
think me part of the landscape.
Claustrophobic in the
temperate rainforest.
Swallowtails chase
each other tumbling.
Canopy crashing leaves.
Two crows pursue an
unlabored hawk
flying above the tree tops.
Out Paced. [I-10 Westbound]
Like a desert sunset
or the flower that blooms
after night and dies
before morning.
The insanity of suburban dogs.
Sharp like the horizon
when you’re going west
at dusk.
Destination. [Home]
A fortune spent on thrifted clothes.
Only closing the screen door to keep the flies out.
Schedule a day around forgetting to buy cigarettes.
Sabotaged by the pot of beans on the stove.
Wondering when the sound of trains will stop
making me miss all the places you’d rather be.
There are no benches in the lobby for layovers.
From No Want for Much (2025)
Go.
Appetite for the in-between.
Bitter because of the burden
of being known.
Savored solitude
until it was sweet.
Settle.
Throwing rocks at trains to hear the clunk of
contact. Small against an immovable object.
Something loved in the sound of a shitty AC
unit. Leaving motel feelings behind.
Eating in front of the mirror. Half price meal
for two. Sharing the table with my reflection.
The fertilized eggs of flowers are fruits.
Something misunderstood without thinking.
Deny.
Attempted contortion
to fit the container
of someone else’s
desire. Cross country
5 - 6 times to visit
your favorite diner.
Bowling alley burger.
Buildings demolished
since the last visit.
Everywhere I go
changes every time.
Even if I stay,
changes all the same.
Stuck.
The sun skated down the power lines.
A golden thread connecting alleys
across town. A moth flew out of a book.
Powdered pigment of a pigeon feather.
An extended arm to capture the image
of one’s self.
To burn on one end,
to drown on the other.
Nothing left in between.
The passage of time without understanding.
Cigarette butts littered across the porch.
Salt solid, humid from the last time
it rained. A hostile world not worth
exploring, once inquisitive about its corners.
About the Author
A.A. Zatarian (she/her) is a Mexican-American poet who spent most of the last twenty years travelling the United States. Her work focuses on discarded and overlooked instances within the indulgent American landscape. A.A. Zatarian has self-printed five chapbooks, including Bad Dog Went (2023) and Fall Risk (2024).